Thankyou all of my reviewers: Dancers of the night, Northern Trash-x, Spidey meets Wizard-Thief and The Duelist's Heiress!
Disclaimer: I do not own YuGiOh.
This chapter has been revised.
.xCHAPTER 4x.
The Brothers
"Who are you?" Yugi asked.
He had heard somebody come into the shop whilst getting a snack from the kitchen. Wondering why somebody had come in when it was clearly closed, the teen had gone to see to them. When he had switched on the lights and looked around he'd seen a figure crouched by the door. He was blond and his skin was very pale, almost paper white. Yugi soon decided this was not a customer. He saw a black liquid dripping out of a hole in his shirt.
"Are you ok?" The person didn't answer. He was looking nervously at Yugi, almost deciding whether he was safe or not.
"Can you speak or not?" Again all he got was silence. The two looked at each other for a few moments before a voice sounded from the room behind the spikey haired boy.
"Yugi? Are you in there?"
"Yeah..." The door from which Yugi had come into the shop from opened once again, this time letting in a slightly taller boy, this boy had white hair. The stranger cried out in horror. He fell back against the door, looking as though he was trying to press himself into the door.
"What's wrong? There's no need to be scared of Ryo, really!" The blond stopped pushing himself into the door, looking at Yugi. He seemed to be checking something about their appearances, his eyes still fearful.
"What's your name? I'm Yugi and this is Ryo." He said smiling cheerfully. The stranger seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"I'm... Marik..." He mumbled, looking down as the other two gasped. The two boys had watched Marik as he had spoken, and seen inside his mouth. They weren't outrageously big, but definitely distinguishable. They had seen two sharp fangs.
"Y-you're a v-vampire." Ryo said, sounding slightly worried. Marik nodded and hung his head.
"Shoot me quickly. I've gone through enough pain already and I don't want to feel any more." Yugi and Ryo exchanged confused glances.
"Why would we do that? We've only just met you, and you can't judge people by what others think." It was Marik's turn to give a confused look.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you have obviously met my brother to be scared of me like that and he hates vampires, he tries to make me hate them too, but seeing as I've only met one vampire in my life - you - I can't hate you, can I? And neither can Yugi." Yugi nodded and smiled.
"Same with my brother, he hates your kind and you and this other vampire have been really annoying him lately, they've had no sightings or anything like th- hey! Ryo what did you nudge me fo-" Ryo gave him a look which told him to be quiet at gestured towards the vampire.
Yugi looked over at him. He noticed Marik was looking at the floor and playing with a piece of string. Tears were threatening the corners of his eyes. The tri-colour haired teen moved closer to the vampire, sitting on the floor next to him when he got close enough. Ryo copied only he crouched rather than sat down.
"What's wrong?" Yugi asked. Marik only looked more upset. "Did I say something?" Yugi was looking slightly anxious now. Marik was not answering him and Yugi couldn't shake the feeling he'd been the one to cause this. Ryo placed his hand on Marik's shoulder, ignoring the flinch he got in return.
"You can tell us you know, we're your friends now, it's okay." Marik continued to look down at the piece of cotton he was playing with but finally began to speak.
"Yugi said you know there was another vampire..." The other two nodded, though they could see Marik hadn't noticed. "She... she was my sister..." The two boys looked at each other, both looking concerned yet slightly hopeful for the vampire. "The hunters must have figured out how to work their tracking computer thing, because they found us... they forced us to run... and..." Marik had dropped his string by now and tears were almost falling from his lavender eyes. "They killed her... those bastards killed her..." The tears had won the battle and were now streaming down his face, the truth finding now the best time to settle in. Yugi and Ryo were looking incredibly saddened by this. Both of them were lost for words. The thought that one of their brothers had been the one to shoot Marik's sister caused a great weight of guilt to rest on them.
The three sat in the shop for some time, not knowing how long. Marik had soon stopped crying and just sat helplessly on the floor with Ryo and Yugi. Finally finding something to say Yugi stood and looked down at the vampire.
"Do you want to go upstairs to my room and I'll bandage that cut for you?" Marik nodded weakly and slowly started to stand.
.xVAMPIRE CHILDx.
Marik was very confused. Yet he was strangely content with the same reason; he was interacting with humans, and they didn't want to kill him. They had even called him their friend! The confusion mainly settled with the fact that the two teens were the brothers of the vampire hunters that sought to kill him.
He was still thinking about this when Yugi arrived with three steaming hot mugs of hot chocolate and a first aid kit. He handed the mugs out and started to unroll some bandages. Marik absentmindedly took a sip of the hot chocolate, almost immediately regretting it. As soon as the sugary liquid touched the tip of his tongue his throat decided it was not going to swallow and he spat it back out, getting strange looks from both Ryo and Yugi.
"What is this?" He spluttered.
"Hot chocolate... OH! You're a vampire, I forgot about that." Yugi said grinning sheepishly."Erm... what do you drink?" He added, a little more nervously than his previous statement. Marik looked up at him, grinning.
"Blood. But I'll be fine for now, and don't worry I won't drink your blood in the middle of the night." The two other boys tried hard not to look too relieved.
"So when do you drink blood?" Marik opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Yugi jumping to his feet and running out of the room saying he'd just remembered something.
He returned a couple of minutes later holding a great bundle of blankets.
"I've got some blankets for you Marik, you'll have to sleep on the floor though sorry, we don't have another camp bed." Yugi had started laying the blankets out onto the floor, Marik simply stared, completely amazed.
"You mean I can stay?"
"No, we're going to leave you outside for the hunters to get you." Marik's eyes shot wide open but Yugi grinned and threw a pillow at the vampire's head, "Of course you can!" Yugi laughed and threw the rest of the blankets and pillows onto the floor for a make-shift bed and headed towards the door again.
"You do eat crisps don't you?" Marik nodded and Yugi ran out of the room again.
.xVAMPIRE CHILDx.
"WHAT? YOU CAME BACK HERE WITH ONE VAMPIRE STILL ALIVE? IMBACILES!"
"Yeah Atem. If you hadn't stayed back with Téa we may have caught hi-"
"He is a TEENAGER! Only one of you should have been enough! What did you do? Give him a headstart? You are all complete IMBACILES!"
"Calm down, we'll catch him soon enough! We just need some sleep!" Bakura waved a hand dismissively though he avoided the man's eyes.
"It seems that was all that you were doing."
Bakura flared instantly, "Shut it Kaiba! You weren't there!"
"I know you all well enough to know it's true."
"You want to see how I got that other rat? I can use your head as an example.."
"Bring it on Flu-"
"THAT IS ENOUGH! I've heard enough from all of you. We must find that vampire, seeing as the machine is now beyond repair, you will have to search for him with your eyes. We know he is in the area and now because miss Gardener is in critical condition, Kaiba will have to join you."
"WHAT?" Bakura and Kaiba were the loudest in this outburst.
"But all he cares about is engineering!"
"I can't go with them!"
"He'll ruin our chances of finding the rat!"
"They'll leave me to do everything!"
"I think not Kaiba!"
"Oh I think so Bakura!"
"Starting again are you?" Malik inquired, amused by their antics.
"Yes, and I will win!" Kaiba gloated smirking at the white haired hunter.
"Oh I highly doubt that!" They glared with sparks flying from their eyes.
"GENTLEMEN PLEASE!" The two were looking rather like vampires themselves when Pegasus broke them apart.
"Now I think you should all go home and get some rest, I need you to be alert tomorrow if you are going to catch the vampir-"
"BUT IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE TOMORROW!" Bakura screeched
"Then I suggest that you find him quickly."
"We will if Kaiba doesn't come!"
"Bakura he may be useful-"
"Oh so everyone sides with him now!"
"No! I'm just saying he may be a good decoy." Atem stiffened, turning his nose up slightly.
"How's he going to do that? Distract him with talk of engineering?"
"I refuse to be a decoy!"
"We were hunters first so we decide!" Bakura insisted fiercely.
"Now you just sound like a child."
"Don't be so cocky!"
"Oh and what are you going to do about it?"
Malik couldn't help but giggle, "You mentioned children before.."
"GENTLEMEN ENOUGH! Please enough bickering!"
"You should let them, it's fun watching them."
"Enough Malik. Now if you have all quite finishe-"
"I'll never have finished with him until he's falling down one of the biggest waterfalls in the world with at least ten swords sticking out of his back!"
"Same here Fluff ball."
"What did you just say?"
"I said 'same here Fluff ball'."
"Now you are insulting me?"
"Yes."
"Then it's go time!"
"Bring it on!"
"Oh I will!"
"IF YOU ARE QUITE FINISHED!" Pegasus was red with the effort he had put into shouting. He looked as though he could explode.
"Please, we are all part of a team here (Bakura: Yeah right) and we must not show our weaknesses by bickering amongst one and other. Save your rage for the vampire, take it all out on him. Now go home and get some rest, I want you all here tomorrow nine o'clock sharp, got it?"
There were a few mumbles that Pegasus took as an agreement. He sighed and walked out of his office.
"Anyone want to come over to mine? I've got loads of beer in." Bakura and Atem nodded and walked out of the office with Malik, leaving Seto to lock up.
.xVAMPIRE CHILDx.
"So when do you drink blood?" Ryo lay down onto his camp bed looking up at the ceiling. Yugi and Marik were soon to copy.
"Whenever I feel like it."
Both boys sweatdropped mentally, "S-so you just bite people and drink their blood?" Yugi asked nervously.
"Yes. Vampires have a special gland at the top of their mouths, so when the blood is extracted it is cleaned with enzymes before we drink it. Sometimes this can take a while, it depends how old the vampire is. There is a law though, about taking blood, a vampire must take at the most one pint of blood, then never take any more from that person again in the year."
"Don't the glands get full?"
"Mmm...yes and if the vampire is careless they can explode."
"Don't people remember the vampires taking their blood?"
"No...I think there is either a spell that you put on them before you take the blood or you can give them a potion after you have taken it so they don't remember anything."
"How does the blood get into the glands?"
"Their fangs have small, I guess you could say, tubes that run through them and that is where the blood goes once the vampire has bitten their victim."
"Is that all your fangs are for then?"
"No, they can be used in self-defense too."
The three teens remained quiet for a while, Yugi and Ryo both thinking about the information they had learned and Marik staring out of the window at the half moon, finding it somehow soothing. He wasn't sure how long he spent staring at it, but the silence was broken by mumbling from a half-asleep Yugi.
"I've just remembered something..." Ryo made a small noise, probably saying a very sleepy 'what'. "...it's Christmas tomorrow."
"The day after tomorrow Yugi..."
"No...it's quarter past midnight... tomorrow..."
Marik lay listening to the other two fall asleep, himself only half way there. Maybe he wouldn't have such a bad Christmas after all.
.xCHAPTER 4 ENDx.