Author Notes: Fangirls and fanboys, I now present to you what you've all been waiting for! It took three separate requests, four months, and an hour+ long livestream of Marik Plays Bloodlines, but I have FINALLY written a Thiefshipping one-shot! I must say, I am quite proud of myself for writing it.

Please enjoy and review!

Life's Too Short

Once he'd wrestled his way into his oversized hoodie, Marik curled up on the couch with his hot chocolate and picked up the TV remote, channel surfing for anything that piqued his interest. After the incident that morning, he'd felt too shaky and agitated to be anywhere but home for the rest of the day. A resounding peal of thunder shook the house, making Marik start and almost spill his hot chocolate.

"Damn storm," he grumbled under his breath before taking another sip of the hot beverage. He had every right to damn the thunderstorm that had caused a car that morning to swerve out of control and almost hit Marik with deadly force. He had every right to damn the rain that had created the puddles Marik had landed in when he lurched out of the way of the car. He had every right to damn the rain that had soaked his clothes as he plodded home without cover after the wind broke his umbrella.

He was still trying to tell himself that he wasn't scared by what had happened that morning. He was still trying to tell himself that he was fine. Sure, his palms were a bit scraped, and both knees were bruised, one rubbed raw to the point of bleeding from where his jeans had slightly slid against the concrete, but other than that, he was fine. He was lucky to be alive.

So why didn't he feel lucky? Maybe because there was nothing pleasant about sitting home alone in the middle of a thunderstorm so severe the world outside looked like dusk when it was high noon? Maybe it was because he'd started to regret kicking Bakura out of the house a month ago, because if Bakura were still here, at least he wouldn't feel alone.

Alone. He really was alone, wasn't he? Yet, by some twist of fate, the gods had spared his life, and it made him wonder if his life had been worth sparing. Not that he was suicidal, not at all, but it made him question what he was doing with himself. Was he living a life worth living? Was he even living a life that he enjoyed? If he was honest with himself, the answer was no.

He hated living alone. He was still angry at himself for being so lovesick after Battle City that he let Ishizu and Odion go back to Egypt without him so he could live with Bakura. What the devil had he been thinking?

He hadn't been thinking, not for a moment. He'd been feeling, which was an entirely different thing altogether. He'd felt that nothing could separate him and Bakura, that they would be together forever. Forever was a very short time indeed.

At the moment, kicking him out had seemed like the right thing to do. They'd both been filled with hot-headed anger, both shouting complaints and hurling insults until they both hid their bleeding hearts behind masks of pride. Marik had told Bakura to leave and never come back, Bakura had screamed that he'd do just that, and then he'd marched out of the house, slammed the door, and never returned.

At least, he'd never been allowed to reenter the house. Marik had dumped Bakura's entire knife collection in the garbage, and Bakura had come back to dig through the can on the street and retrieve his most precious possessions. He'd snuck into the house when Marik wasn't home to take a few things that Marik was sure to miss: Bakura's trench-coat hanging on the coatrack, Bakura's steak taking up too much space in the fridge, Marik's favorite dong from the drawer of his nightstand…

"Damn you, Bakura," Marik cursed, glaring at his hot chocolate before gulping it too eagerly. He almost spilled his hot chocolate yet again as another loud noise caught him off-guard. It wasn't thunder, though. It was a loud, ceaseless banging on his front door. He cursed to himself as he set down his hot chocolate and rose from his cozy set-up on the couch to answer the door. The moment the door was unlocked and opened, it swung wide to reveal a drenched, dingy thief.

"Are you alright?" he demanded, his words loud and stern as he stepped into the house, forcing Marik to back up, and held Marik's warm face with both of his cold, wet hands.

"What are you—?"

"Are. You. Alright?" Bakura repeated, his eyes narrowed and blazing, his voice angry in a way that Marik couldn't understand. That fierce gaze dropped and travelled down the length of Marik's body, realizing that he wouldn't get a vocal answer from the Egyptian. His eyes burned into Marik's again, this time with less heat. "You don't seem to have broken anything, but you're shaking like a leaf."

Marik blinked at Bakura, trying to hold himself together. "Why are you here?" he demanded, even his voice shaky.

"I heard about the car accident."

"I didn't get hit—"

"I didn't know that," Bakura snapped, irritated, then dropped his hands from Marik's face with a heavy sigh. "I just knew that there was an altercation between you and the car, and if you weren't here, I would have invaded every nearby hospital to find where you were."

"You would do that for me?" he asked softly, feeling rather touched by the proclamation.

A gust of cold wind blew rain onto them both of them through the open door. He moved past Bakura to close and lock the front door, using the deadbolt as always. He turned around and Bakura was still staring at him with an incomprehensible anger.

"Why are you mad at me?" Marik pouted, crossing his arms.

"You should be more careful," Bakura growled in his rich, gravelly voice, the same voice that sent thrills through his body and made his toes curl.

"It wasn't my fault." Marik turned up his nose at Bakura as he looked away from him. "And anyways, why do you care? You treated me like shit when we were together."

Bakura strode forward with the slow, sensual gait of a tiger fixated on his prey. "That's why I came back."

"Because you treated me like shit?" Marik retorted, his face flushing as Bakura walked right up to him, only stopping once they stood toe to toe.

"Because life's too short." He seized Marik's hair in one hand and jerked him down into a rough, eager kiss. Marik groaned and trembled with need instead of fear, arms slipping loosely around Bakura's waist as the thief grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him close. They made out intensely for several long minutes, neither of them wanting to let up after missing each other for a whole month. In the end, it was another rumble of thunder—and a sudden swath of dusk-blue darkness—that broke them apart.

"Did the power just go out?" Bakura asked after a few moments of pure silence, uninterrupted by the white-noise of senseless TV commercials.

"I-I think so," Marik stammered, looking frightened again. Bakura, in a surprising show of tenderness, took Marik by the hand and led him upstairs to their bedroom. Marik stood in the center of the room, still trembling, as Bakura went to the dresser they'd once shared and opened the top drawer, removing the candle lighter and striker a flame at the tip of the long black tube.

Carefully, holding his breath while holding the flame as far away from himself as possible, he lit the three wicks of the candelabra. After the last time that the power had gone out on them, they'd realized that they needed a plan for the next time. Their problem was two-fold: Marik feared the darkness and Bakura hated fire, and Marik trusted candles more than he trusted batteries. Bakura set down the lighter once the candles were light and went to the battery-operated night-light, switching it on with ease. Marik was relieved that he didn't mock him for it.

"You're wet," Marik said softly, staring at the puddles of water that Bakura had dripped onto the floor.

"So I am," Bakura replied with an air of detachment, taking a moment or two to look down at himself.

"And you're dirty."

"Yep, that too."

"Have you been living on the streets this whole time?"

"Pretty much." Bakura smirked, as if being homeless for a month hadn't fazed him in the slightest. "It wasn't the first time and it won't be the last."

"It will be the last," Marik contradicted firmly. "You're coming back to live with me."

Bakura strolled up to Marik and lifted his hand to cup one tan cheek, his palm less wet and less cold than before. "You know Marik," he murmured, looking almost regretful. "When I said that life's too short, I wasn't talking about mine."

Marik swallowed past the catch in his throat before he answered, "I know." Bakura was immortal: he understood that. He'd come to terms with that fact long ago.

"Come on, let's dry you off," Marik said brusquely, turning to lift the candelabra and head to the bathroom, Bakura on his heels.

"You're so old-fashioned," the thief muttered, eying the candles dubiously.

"Like you aren't old-fashioned yourself," Marik retorted, setting the candelabra down on the bathroom sink and starting the process of undressing Bakura a bit at a time. "You use knives when you could use guns instead."

Bakura just grunted at that as he was gradually stripped of his clothes, the water squeezed out of each item before it was hung over the curtain rod. After just the coat, though, Marik realized something quite important.

"You need a bath."

"I'm not that dirty."

"Yes you are, and you'll get sick if you don't warm up, besides."

"Then warm me up yourself," Bakura proposed, tugging on the strings of Marik's sweatshirt to pull him forward.

"That wouldn't get you clean." Marik worked hard to express only the fact that he was disgruntled as he freed himself from Bakura's grasp and ducked around him to get the bath running. Bakura tugged Marik's sweatshirt off over his head as Marik straightened up. "Hey!" he protested as the damp item was dropped to the floor.

"It was wet. By your logic, that would get you sick." The thief smirked.

"It was only wet because of you."

"I could make you wetter if you want me too." Bakura licked his lips.

Flustered, Marik shoved Bakura towards the tub. "Just get in already."

"I'm still wearing my pants, though." Bakura smirked wickedly now.

"Then take them off and let me wring them out," Marik said with a huff. Bakura may have had a minor change of heart, but he could still be an ass when he wanted to. Bakura did as he was told, stepping into the bath as Marik gripped his pants tightly and twisted them over the sink until he'd squeezed out as much dirty water as possible. Over the curtain rod they went, then Marik removed the shower nozzle from its fixture and turned the water on again, this time sending it to the shower head. He sprayed the water directly into the bath, testing the temperature with his hand.

"What are you doing?" The thief eyed Marik suspiciously.

"Well, you're not doing anything, so I might as well wash your hair for you." When Marik was satisfied with the temperature of the water, he started washing Bakura's hair, soaking it down, turning the water off, then pouring shampoo in his hands so that he could scrub his scalp into a sudsy mess. He was surprised that Bakura wasn't grumbling or complaining. Maybe he really did have a revelation that morning…

Bakura closed his eyes as Marik's fingers worked through his hair, listening to the Egyptian's soft humming. This was nice, he decided. It was true that he did tend to be barbaric in his ways—at least, that was the word Marik had used to describe him—but there were parts of Marik's modern, matronly sensibilities that he not only appreciated, but enjoyed.

"What did you put in my hair? It smells like a flower shop vomited on me."

Marik snorted at that, amused instead of irritated, despite Bakura's grouchy tone. "Better flower shop vomit than Eaux d'Sewer."

"I don't smell like a sewer!"

"You got so used to the smell that you don't even notice it anymore." Marik wrinkled his nose. "I would have thought that you'd at least take care of yourself when you were on your own."

"Ryou would have taken care of me—if I'd let him out."

Marik's hands stilled for a moment. "You haven't let him out for a whole month?"

"I did briefly every now and then for the first week or so. That's how I spy on Yugi and his friends, remember? He's the reason I don't look worse than I do."

The bronze teen resumed scrubbing Bakura's hair, frowning at the dingy grey color the bubbles had turned. He turned the shower-head back on started to rinse the soap out of Bakura's hair. "How did you find out about the car accident?"

"I was lurking outside the Game Shop and overheard one of his dumb friends telling Yugi about it. Apparently one idiot saw the incident from a distance, called another idiot and told him, and he went to pass the news to Yugi."

"Are you talking about Joey, Tristan, and Tea?" Marik asked, irked.

"I may be referring to some combination of them," Bakura said with a dismissive air and a careless shrug. "The blond idiot was the one talking to Yugi. Hey!" he exclaimed as Marik clubbed him on the head.

"Don't talk about Joey that way. He's my friend."

"Since when do you have any friends besides me?" Bakura sounded jealous, and Marik allowed himself a moment to revel in that.

"Since you stopped hogging me all to yourself," he sassed back. He turned the water off and started to shampoo Bakura's hair again, wanting to make sure that he was completely clean before he started to run amok through the house. "I like Joey. He's nice and cheerful."

"If you like cheerful so much, why don't you date him then." The grumbled complaint was accompanied by a tensing of Bakura's pale shoulders, hinting that his words weren't scornful sarcasm, but something sincere.

"Because I don't love him," Marik answered calmly, slipping off the edge of the tub to kneel on the floor beside it, shifting over so that they could face each other. Marik had to seize Bakura's chin and drag his face towards his, though, for this to happen. "I love you, Bakura, you know that." Marik had missed the way Bakura's harsh expressions would soften for him in his precious moments of true sentimentality.

"I love you too, Marik," he whispered, his voice quiet, as if he were afraid someone else might hear and accuse him of being anything other than unscrupulously heartless and cruel. They kissed for a moment, a light touch of lips that Marik ended quickly, before it escalated into more. Bakura still had to finish getting clean, after all. The Egyptian teen resumed his delicate perch on the edge of the tub, deciding that he'd spent sufficient time indulging in the feel Bakura's wet, soapy hair. He wanted to hurry this along before the water got cold. Yeah, that was why.

"Joey's father hits him too. He kind of understands what I've been through."

Bakura had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep himself from making a snarky project.

"Thank you for taking me back."

Marik froze for a moment, stunned. Had Bakura just thanked him?

"And… I'm sorry for the things I said and did. I'll be better." After several moments of silence, Bakura looked over his shoulder at Marik and rolled his eyes. "Stop gawking at me or I'll take it back."

"I forgive you." Marik might be the only person in the history of the world to ever whisper those words to the Thief King of Kul Elna. Gratitute and apologies were slightly rarer than "I love yous" when it came to Bakura. And his "I love yous" were quite rare indeed. Marik had only ever heard maybe half a dozen from him in the several months they'd been together.

Marik finished with Bakura's hair, then handed him a bottle of liquid bodywash. "Here, you finish washing up while I get you some clothes." Bakura looked like he wanted to protest, but he didn't. He didn't even protest when Marik left him in the dark by taking the candelabra with him. Bakura prefered the dark anyways, and he was relieved to have the fire be gone. Why couldn't Marik just be happy with a bloody flashlight?

Bakura washed himself as Marik had told him to, the bathwater changing color as more grime and filth was removed from his body. By the time Marik had returned with clothes, the thief was toweling himself off as the dirty water drained from the tub. Marik looked away as Bakura dressed, busying himself with trying to flush the silty residue on the floor of the tub down the drain with the rest of the water.

"Let's dry your hair."

"Can we do it while watching TV?" Bakura asked, getting clonked on the head for a second time.

"Power outage, remember?"

"You have a laptop, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but shouldn't we save the battery life?"

"The power won't be out for that long. Trust me."

So it was that they found themselves back downstairs, with both small lights—the night-light and the candelabra. Marik was sitting on the couch as Bakura sat on the floor between his knees, letting the other rub a towel vigorously over his head to remove excess water before attempting to brush all of the knots and tangles out so that it returned to its former silky glory. The laptop sat on the coffee-table before them, Bakura's favorite crime show playing. It was actually a nice compromise of what they both liked: copious diabolical crime for Bakura, and a happy ending for Marik.

When another crash of thunder made Marik jump, Bakura turned up the volume on the laptop, trying to drown out any more thunderclaps.

"We didn't have storms like this in Egypt," Marik murmured defensively, but Bakura just nodded.

"I know."

Bakura's snowy white hair was still damp when Marik finally gave up and set the hairbrush with the towel on the floor. The thief crept up onto the couch beside Marik, putting an arm around him in a manner that was both possessive and comforting. The Egyptian teen leaned in against his partner, cuddling against him as he tugged the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it over both of them.

When the episode ended, Bakura paused it and looked at Marik with mischief in his warm brown eyes. "You know, if you're cold, I can think of a way for us to keep warm."

"And what way would that be?" he asked coyly. Marik already knew where this was going. Neither of them had really settled down after their heated kiss by the front door. He played along anyways. Bakura's maniacal cleverness was Marik's guilty pleasure.

"They say the best way to consolidate body heat is with direct skin-to-skin contact," Bakura crooned, his hand taking Marik's and caging their fingers together.

"Hm. Naked in the middle of the day? I don't know, Bakura, that sounds rather improper, don't you think?" Marik feigned resistance, wanting to hear Bakura's seductive wiles, the ones he'd missed the last few weeks.

"I'd call it resourceful, considering that the power's out and we don't know when it'll come back on."

Pale lips pressed to the back of Marik's hand, the one entwined with Bakura's. He pressed small kisses to his wrist, then started to push back his long sleeve so as to tease more of his dark skin. He advanced as far up Marik's arm as he could get, halting his progress at the inside of his elbow. Marik was panting softly, trying not to squirm as he bit his lip to suppress a moan. His pants felt too constricting, too tight. He wanted to be rid of them.

"Are you convinced yet?" Bakura purred against his lover's tanned flesh, the vibrations of his voice making Marik shiver afresh.

"Damn it, Bakura," he groaned, surrendering entirely to his desires. He'd tried playing the thief's little game, but he'd never been as patient as him. He'd missed Bakura badly in the time they'd spent apart, so why wait any longer? "Get me naked now."

Bakura chuckled, pleased that their lust was completely mutual. The only difference between them was that he was exercising his self-control. After they'd made love on the couch—having made use of the lube bottle they'd stash underneath it a while ago for situations just like this one—they just lay wrapped together in the blanket, Marik dozing off as his lover thoughtfully stroked his platinum blond hair.

Bakura couldn't help but marvel at himself. For three thousand years, he hadn't cared for anybody but himself. Sure, he'd had flings and one-night stands in his borrowed bodies, but his heart had lain dormant all that time. Then Marik had come along and somehow changed that, awakening the heart he thought had died in his chest. It felt strange, but he had to admit, he kind of liked it.

He didn't know why it was happening now. Maybe because his host's soul was linked to his own in an inexplicable way. Maybe because this was, as he knew but hadn't told Marik, the last body he'd ever borrow. Marik's incident that morning had been a wake up call for Bakura, reminding him that if he failed, this would be the last life he'd have on earth. If he was going to fail, then he was going to fail with a flourish. And if he succeeded... Then he'd have someone he could share his immortality with.

Marik might redeem his soul yet.