Note: Yes, it is a real symptom. Well, I may have embellished a bit, but I had their best interests in mind.

Use the Man

Chapter 9

The bath had worked wonders on his aching muscles, but it had also been exhausting. As soon as he'd managed to drag himself out, dry himself off as best he could and get back to the bed – without help from Seto – he'd collapsed on top of the sheets and passed out. By the time he woke up again evening was beginning to set in and he felt a little stronger than he had, but odd, somehow. It took him a few moments of contemplation to figure out exactly what had changed, but when he did it almost made him laugh. His body tingled – not with the itching in his blood that had thankfully mostly abated, but with a desire he hadn't felt in a long time. He wanted to be touched, and the longing to feel skin against his own had come upon him so suddenly that he knew it had to be a symptom of the withdrawals. An odd one, though. Running long fingers through his hair and smirking slightly at the ridiculousness of suddenly feeling like a horny teenager again, Bakura carefully got out of bed and headed over to the bathroom on slightly shaky legs, reasoning that cold showers were the universal cure for such an affliction. Surely it would go away once he'd stood beneath the icy spray for a while.

Half an hour later and soaking wet, Bakura suppressed a shiver and dried himself off, pulling on a bath robe. He could still feel the tingling sensation covering his skin, but he could ignore it if he tried. Besides, it amused him to have such a normal, base emotion for once. He didn't intend to do anything about it, though. Although, as soon as he thought about it he had to wonder what it would be like. The only other person around was Seto, and there was no denying that the former priest was attractive. Bakura didn't know if the CEO favoured men or women, but if they happened to be on the same page it might have been quite an experience. Not that it would have anything to do with having any feelings for each other, it would purely have been to sate the lust that seemed to have wrapped itself around him. He wondered what kind of lover Seto Kaiba was. He didn't seem likely to give up his control, but Bakura didn't mind that. There were other ways to be in charge, after all.

Chastising himself for even bothering to contemplate such things, Bakura sighed and toweled his hair as dry as he could get it, the wild spikes dampened down a little from the weight of the water. It was pointless trying to tame it, so he left the unruly mass of white hair to dry naturally, the same way it usually did. He wondered if he looked more like Ryou with his hair damp, and stood in front of the mirror to check. The temperature of the water hadn't been high enough to steam up the glass, and he looked over his reflection critically. No, he decided. He still didn't look anything like Ryou. It was all in the eyes. Ryou's were large and brown and innocent, long-lashed and expressive. Every emotion that he felt ran through his eyes, and when he smiled they lit up with that endless supply of inner light the boy seemed to have. Bakura's eyes were nothing like that. He stared into them for a while, wondering what happened to people who stared into the blackness of their own pupil for too long. Was he supposed to be able to see something in there? A soul, or a spark of life, or some such? The eyes of corpses did look different, he mused, but he'd always thought it was because they never moved. What an odd thing to be thinking about, he realised belatedly. He'd been inspecting his eyes. Right. Well, they were darker than Ryou's. He always managed to look like he was wearing eyeliner, without actually wearing any. It was even worse lately, the shadows deepening and making the colour of his eyes look even darker than before. They were red, that was another difference when compared to Ryou, who had eyes that were the colour of chocolate. His own were a dark, rusty red, like dried blood. He was sure it said something about his personality that the only thing he could think of that was the same colour as his eyes was something so morbid.

He had long eyelashes - he'd gotten that from Ryou, although their eyes were a different shape. Ryou's were much larger and rounder than his own, which just looked generally wicked no matter how he spun it. He wondered what Seto thought of his eyes, then wondered why he was wondering that. Seto's eyes were blue, everyone knew that. His favourite Duel Monsters card was the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, after all. Bakura wondered if Seto being in love with the woman who's ka had been the Blue-Eyes in his past life meant that he preferred women in this one. Love. Now there was a vaguely terrifying word.

Turning away from the mirror when looking into his own eyes revealed nothing usable, Bakura decided that action was called for. He was starting to feel pathetically horny again and had actually thought about the L-word, so it would probably be a good idea to just go right ahead and have sex with Seto. Get it out of his system and move on, since lust usually went away once it had been sated. That was the point, wasn't it? Seto had been giving him some fairly distracted glances and had seemed unduly fascinated by his legs earlier, so unless he was reading too much into it, Seto found him attractive. He would probably be pleased – businesslike as he was – to get the whole lust thing out of the way and go back to being... whatever they were. Acquaintances? Patient and kidnapper? Not friends, because he was sure Seto would hate that term about as much as he did. Back to the point, anyway. Sating the mutual – he hoped – lust. And if it wasn't mutual, at least he'd know, which would be something. Hourly cold showers would probably deal with the problem – in a much less pleasant way than he'd prefer – until the feeling wore off. Alright, then it was settled.

Now, how to broach the subject to Seto...?

XxXxX

"I have a problem with one of these withdrawal symptoms, and cold showers are not helping." Bakura said conversationally as he stepped into Seto's office, the door having been left ajar in case he needed anything. This, he assumed, counted. He'd opted for the direct approach with Seto, after half an hour of dithering over how exactly to break the news to the CEO. As such, he was still wearing the bathrobe because it was comfortable, and easily accessible. His mind was also not working within it's usual parameters due to the rather pressing desire to find out if Seto Kaiba had the capacity to feel senseless lust.

The cold showers comment seemed to tip Seto off to the type of problem Bakura was having, and he looked up from his laptop with a raised eyebrow, taking Bakura's slightly damp, robe-clad figure in with a look that definitely counted in the thief's favour.

"What exactly would you like me to do about it?" Seto asked, getting up from his chair and moving unhurriedly around the large desk until nothing separated him from Bakura except a few feet of open space and tasteful carpet.

"I would have thought that to be fairly obvious." Bakura replied, closing the door behind him and leaning against the solid frame, looking slightly flushed from the remnants of his fever and far more disreputable than Seto had ever imagined anyone in a bathrobe could look.

"And you're certain about that?" Seto felt obligated to ask, even though Bakura didn't seem outwardly delirious. The question of wanting Bakura or not never even entered his mind, since he considered that anyone who didn't want Bakura must be either blind or insane.

"It is only sex." Bakura stated, not sure which of them he was lying to more. Seto paused at his answer, wondering to himself if this was 'only sex' the same way as 'it's all about the drugs'. As in, an utter lie that he was sticking to so that he could stubbornly avoid realising that he was probably falling for the mentally unbalanced, socially inept, occasionally murderous ancient Egyptian dead man leaning against the door to his office.

"Alright," Seto smirked, not really putting up much of an argument because he couldn't think of a single reason not to do this. There were probably a lot, but his mind was firmly shutting them out in favour of trying to remember the softest surface in his office. Stalking forward with two quick strides, he slid his hand into the soft, slightly damp strands of Bakura's hair at the back of his neck, enjoying the feeling for a moment before using the hold there to tilt the thief's head back a little. Bakura didn't resist in the slightest, pleased that he was getting what he wanted so easily, and felt his lips covered by Seto's. His eyes fell closed and he parted his lips a little in invitation, raising his own hand to entangle itself in Seto's short hair when he was kissed so deeply and thoroughly that he thought his heart would stop from the way it skipped in his chest. He'd never quite had that reaction to just a kiss before, he could tell the rest of the night was going to be an enlightening experience.

The burning lips moved down slowly along Bakura's angular jaw to his throat, and the attentions being lavished on his pale neck and delicate collarbone felt wonderful. Seto seemed determined to seek out each sensitive spot and use it to his fullest advantage. However, the thief was still far from recovered from the exhaustion of the last few days and he couldn't help a surge of annoyance at his frailty as his knees began to weaken.

The lips against his skin only added to the feeling of being ready to collapse, but admitting that to Seto was not something he was inclined to do. The CEO seemed to know anyway, thankfully. He steered them over to the large, leather chair behind the desk and sat down, bringing Bakura down to straddle his lap. The thief once again shivered as his sensitive throat was assaulted and wondered if Seto always paid such delightful attention to his lovers. The thought of Seto having other lovers sent a stab of irrational jealousy through Bakura and he crushed it down, leaning forward and pressing his lips to Seto's in a kiss that was slightly more possessive than it should have been.

Finding a comfortable position that didn't tire Bakura too much or press against the still tender wound on Seto's leg took a few moments, but it was well worth it in the end. The sex was wonderful – Bakura couldn't remember the last time anyone had made him feel so good – and he didn't even remember how he'd gotten back to bed afterwards. All he could remember was Seto's skin against his and the feeling that this was where he wanted to be, before he'd thrown his head back and moaned Seto's name like the CEO was the only thing he would ever need. It had been perfect, and as Bakura fell asleep back in his own bed he knew that, come morning, he was going to regret it.

There had only been one L-word in his mind when he'd looked into Seto's dark, hungry eyes, and it definitely hadn't been lust.

TBC

Although I'm sure there was plenty of lust as well. Yes, I did utterly cop out of writing a lemon. I'm tired, and I feel more like writing some actual plot at the moment. Also, I thought I'd better actually obey FFN's rules for once before they kick me off here again. Hope you lot're enjoying it anyway!