A/N Please forgive any spelling or grammar mistakes on this chapter. I'm rushing getting this out to you guys. I did not use any myth from Egypt in this chapter because I am not familiar with there star related myths. the few that I was able to find did not fell right to use in the context I was using them. If you are interested in finding out more on the myths I used in this chapter check out the the YouTube channel overly sarcastic production. let me know what you think
Bakura sat alone in Marik's room flipping though the astronomy book Marik had given him. Shopping today had taken more out of him then he had expected. Marik had left him to his own devices without him having to ask.
He could hear Ryou and Marik in the living room playing a game. He knew that if he stayed in here they would bring him a plate of food at dinner. While was grateful for the space this afternoon he did not want the two of them to coddle him. Maybe it was just his pride talking but he hated having to depend on anyone else. He did not know how to accept Marik and Ryou doing things for thing for him. Even though he knew that it wasn't the case it felt like pity. The only way that Bakura knew to move forward was to get to the point that he could do things on his own. He felt like he had recovered enough to join them, so Bakura closed the book and went into the living room.
Bakura saw the two of them sitting at the dining room table. Ryou was sitting behind a dungeon master divider. Neither of them noticed as he made his way to the table to. Ryou rolled his dice from behind his divider. Ryou referred to one of the many sheets of paper he had laid in front of him he began to read.
"The adventures slice though the thorn hedges you put blocking their path. The poison throne cuts through the parties exposed flesh, but the mage realizing this cast antidote on the party curing all of them from the stat use effect they continue down the path till evening where they spend the night at the local tavern to rest."
"I thought that would have at least slowed them down a little." Marik cured under his breath looking at his character sheet figuring out what his next move.
"What are you playing?" Bakura asked pulling up the chair and sitting down
"I'm experimenting with a one-person campaign I wrote were your trying to take over the world."
"I'm apparently just became power full enough for adventures to start taking notice and are on a quest to stop me." Marik said.
"I tried to warn you about one of the guards was still alive and would sound the alarm on your plan!"
"come on that was barley even a hint."
"Can you have a campaign with just one person?" Bakura asked
"We're experimenting with the format." Ryou answered. That explained why everything on the table was so minimalistic. Ryou normally would go all out when he was writing a campaigning. They had spent nearly six months working on the diorama for their final shadow game.
"Mind if I join?" Ryou's face lit up at the question "Sure if Marik is okay with that."
Marik gave a sly smile "I could always use another minion for cannon fatter." Ryou handed him a character sheet for Bakura to fill out
"I am not your minions I'm in charge or we are partners." Bakura said looking over Marik's character sheets and notes on the game so far. Bakura studied the information planning out his character to make any areas of weakness that Marik had.
"The way I'm remember it I called all the shots in battle city." Marik said
"You were so wrapped around Marik s finger I'm surprised that it didn't need to be amputated, amazing Zorc took as long as he did to figure it out."
"Zorc was terrible at understanding human emotion!" Bakura said to lighten the mood he went back to reading the papers Marik handed him.
Marik was a dark mage one of the most versatile classes it was a sound decision for playing a campaign on your own. The draw back to this class was being a glass canon the hero gets one good hit in and it was game over. Bakura reasoned that he needed to go with a fighting base class, he also quickly eliminated archers and any long-range weapons classes. Marik's character was at an advantage in distant fighting so something with close rage weapons. Bakura decide to have his character to be am assassin with a thief sub class.
"I'll give you half of all of the experience that Marik earned so far" Ryou said
"So I do all the work and he get the benefits." Marik said the jab was said with no malice or ill intent in it. Bakura under stood the joke and responded with a barb of his one
"I have no idea what that is like." Bakura says as Ryou finished doing the calculations and handed back Bakura's character sheet.
"If you two are done flirting can we get back to playing?"
Bakura used his shadow travel ability ambush the group of adventures. He made quick work of them he made sure to leave one of them alive and he dragged him back to the strong hold. The two interrogated the bard. He had done well to keep quiet at first but after the fifth torture sessions with Bakura had the prisoner singing like a Canary.
They found that the adventures had been making their way to ancient tomb to collect an ancient sacred artifact that would be able to kill Marik. They killed the NPC and the set out to go and collect the sacred object themselves.
On their way, back from clearing the dungeon a bird flew up to them delivering a message. one of Marik spies had discovered who and created the quest to defeat them. It was the small but wealthy Kingdom to the south.
The plan was to infiltrate the Royal court Bakura as a wealthy merchant from a far-off Kingdom wanting to establish new trade relation. Marik was to be a suitor to the kingdoms Prince Alphonso. The court was suspicious of them at first but they quickly became two of the most beloved figures in court.
They used fool proof strategies Marik slipping a love potion on the prince. Bakura using charms and discreetly killing any who said anything ill against Marik. Marik arrange for a quick wedding Bakura keeping his ears to the ground and squashing any discontent before it became an issue. The day of the wedding Bakura snuck into the palace kitchen and put poison in all the dishes. The entire castle was dead by the wedding feast.
Taking over the kingdom had created several problems with the neighboring kingdoms uniting together and sending an army to attack them. Marik used the kingdoms vast wealth to fund their own army with Bakura in charge of training. They crushed the enemy army with easy that should have been the end of the game, but word came in from Marik's network of spies.
An underground network of mages that were planning to over throw Marik. Bakura went to investigate. He had a few unlucky rolls and got captured by the cult. Marik went to rescue him. As they made their way up through the dungeon Ryou drops increasingly disturbing details, Blood on door handles and distant screams, pulling the game in to Lovecraft horror.
With these pieces of information and the bit of investigating the discovered that the cult worshiped an ancient god that they had been offering sacrifices to revive and take over the world. They ran into the head of the order preforming a ritual. A fight was triggered they defeated the order but Marik character did not survive. Bakura took over the ritual and summoned the eldritch God and had des to, the world.
"What the fuck." Ryou laughed taking a bite of now cold pizza that they had ordered.
"You're the one who let me do it," Bakura accused
"Thanks for leaving me dead by the way!"
"I didn't have any magic or items to bring you back!" Bakura reasoned
"You could have found a necromancer or gone on a quest."
"That would have taken hours." Ryou looked down at his phone yawning "and it already 3:00 I would have denied that or instead on it starting a new session" Ryou said as he wished the other two good night. Marik went to his room to grab some clothes to sleep in.
"I'm going to sleep on the couch tonight" Marik said as he went to the half bathroom in the living room.
Thing between the two of them still felt precarious to Bakura. Marik was still keeping his distance from fear of scaring Bakura off. Bakura was unsure of how to bridge the gap himself. He wanted for the two of them to go back to what they had been before, or at least to wear Marik wasn't afraid to stay in the same room as him.
He couldn't put those feelings into words. He was too exhausted to come up with anything right so he figured that he should just leave it for the night. The next few days had not been any better as Bakura tried to approach Marik about what he was wanting. It had actually been Marik who had initiated the conversation "Do you still want to go on that date I was thinking that we could do it tonight?"
"Sure." Bakura said taken aback.
Marik read this as reluctance on Bakura "We don't have too" Marik said trying to reassure him.
"No, I want to I was just suspired you want to do it tonight.
"Great." Marik said relived "You should wear something comfortable."
Bakura stared in to the mirror tying his hair up. He took in a deep breath trying to calm his nerves. Marik asked him if he wanted to go on a date tonight. Bakura was wearing jeans and a simple tee shirt. Marik had told him to dress comfortable for tonight.
Marik borrowed Ryou's car again for the date. Marik drove them to a hill area about an hour outside of the city. when they parked at the tallest hill in the area Bakura turned to Marik "What are we doing here."
"Having a picnic" Marie said getting out of the car.
"What?" Bakura asked walking to the trunk opening it and pulling out a picnic basket and a blanket. They laid out the blanket for them to lay on. They eat the dinner Ryou made them under the star filled sky.
Bakura laid down looking up from the skies. This was the clearest he had seen the stars in a long time there were no clouds or city lights to obstruct the view. Marik laid down next to him
"When I lived under ground there was this one part of the caverns that you could see out to the sky. The only part that you could really make out was the moon you couldn't see any of the constellations" Marik said.
"You can't really tell any of the constellations unless someone teaches you!"
"can you teach me?"
"I remember my mom and dad telling me the names stories of the constellations but I can remember any of the detail. The fragments I can recall are all about glory to the pharaoh and the gods''. Bakura said the last part of the statement with a cold tone.
"Most of the stories that I know are the Greek myths that I learned in Ryou's literature class. There's and Andromeda." Bakura said pointing up at the sky "Her parents had angered the gods and they demanded that she be sacrificed to a sea monster" Bakura pointed to another set of stars that was the sea monster "Before that happened Perseus slayed the gorgon medusa and used her head to defeat the sea monster."
"The gods didn't try to kill her again?"
Bakura shrugged "The gods in Greek stories are all ways petty and a tale there's a story that the Pleiades were being chased by Orion Zeus turned the sisters in to stars but because he's a dick when Orion was killed by a scorpion he put Orion next to them so he could chase them for eternity." Bakura pointed to each set of constellations as he told the story. They were silent just looking up at the sky
"Have you thought about taking a class in astronomy?" Marik asked breaking the silence
"What do mean?"
"The University Ryou and I go to has classes you can take on astronomy they probably even have online options." Bakura wonder if Marik was saying this because Ryou told Marik about their conversation a few days ago. I would be nice he thought to have something tangible that he could do.
"Maybe if I did that it would help me remember some of the stories my parents told me." Bakura said he turned his head to look over at Marik who was quietly staring out of the Moon. I made him think of the one of Ryou favorite myths that he read in class.
"Ryou had told be a legend about the moon once. Hou Yi was the divine archer that got kicked out of heaven along with his wife Chang'E." Chang'E reminded Bakura of Marik someone who was punished by the whim of the god thought no fault of their own. Bakura let the thought drift away as he continued telling the story
"Now human Hou Yi goes on a quest to try and regain their immortality. He is able to a vile of the elixir, but there is only enough for one of them not wanting to be separated the two decide to hide the elixir away. The two live happily till one of Hou Yi apprentices finds out about the elixir and attack Chang'E while her husband is away. She drinks the elixir herself in order to keep him from having it, and becomes a goddess again. She can no longer live on earth with her husband so she lives on the moon so that she can be closer to him ." Bakura said.
"I love you" Marik whispered" Bakura turned his head to look over at Marik. Marik
was on his side staring at Bakura. Marik's placid expression to one of shock as he realized what he said Marik shot up "forget I said that" he said picking up the containers from there dinner.
Bakura got up grabbed Marik is hand as he put the tuba ware contained in the basket, he then Cupped Marik's cheek with his other hand. Bakura could see the worry on Marik's face as he said "no".
Marik opened his mouth to say something, but before he could get any words out Bakura leaned toward and kissed him. Marik returned the kiss and wrapped his arms around Bakura's neck. Bakura could feel tear began to slide down Marik's face. Bakura laid them back down on the blanket and deep end the kiss. the two Stayed like this for a good while kissing under the stars.