"You drive," Bakura said, almost approvingly, shaking his hair out, "like a rabid weasel."

They were back in front of the Ishtar house, a square, narrow-looking two-story villa with bricks painted a chipped, yellowing off-white. A small, almost-hidden archway on one side invited you to the tiny back terrace, and unruly greenery clutched the walls like curling fingers, as if to possess it, thin green branches and little purple flowers pressing in, terrified that any day now they'd be ripped from comfortable river soil and sent east to die. The sort of house that Marik thought must have looked very nice, a long time ago, before it fell into disrepair, probably because all the kids moved out to Cairo or Suez and someone's grandmother couldn't keep it up anymore and instead it got auctioned off cheap. Marik liked it very much, even the yellow. It had just enough cracks to preserve the foundation, just broken enough to be fixable, perfect for the three of them, and the back had bay windows.

"You have helmet hair." Marik said, because Bakura did.

Surprise wrote itself on Bakura's face, and out of spite he reached up and intentionally mussed up his hair until it settled somewhere between a porcupine and a cirrus cloud, satisfied with himself. Marik smiled. He found Bakura very easy to read. There was something awkwardly untrained there, like he wasn't used to people looking at him or just didn't care, so he rarely bothered to mute his expression. It made him very fun to mess with. You could always get a face.

Bakura followed him up the thin, overgrown walkway with no objections. Bribery really does work. Marik's most recent plan was going very well, all things considered.

Marik Ishtar had recently endeavored on a quest to be a better person, and if possible, the best person that had ever existed on the face of the earth. There was no doubt he could accomplish this. He'd always been driven by a pragmatic sort of heroism, after all, and he was by all accounts charming and brave. Sure, in the past he'd been misguided. Made a few horrible, gutting mistakes to keep him awake at night. He was only human. Surely there is room for a little error? Perhaps if you thought about it you would realize that his ability to acknowledge his flaws with such humility and grace was really just another great thing about him.

Trouble was, of course, that it is so difficult to continue being a good person when there's not many people to be good to and more importantly when there is no one around to congratulate you for it, in which case there was barely even a point.

Marik Ishtar was 17 years old and had managed to make approximately seven friends in his entire life. Six of them currently lived on another continent. He could text Yugi and Anzu all he wanted, set up online games with Jonouchi, but time zones and geography proved a consistent obstacle. Marik had no more loyal followers, his crime syndicate dissolved; Rishid, while always there and ever attentive, was taking space for himself that Marik, guiltily, dare not interrupt; Ishizu, a busy and important woman, who made time for weekend boardgames but came home late all week. After six straight years of being surrounded by people who worshipped him and obeyed his every whim, Marik was increasingly finding himself alone.

He didn't ask for much. Just someone to play games with who was ideally his own age and not related to him, you know? Someone to appreciate him that he wouldn't get bored of?

A simple enough problem to solve. It's a decent size city. Most people had friends, even the most mind-numbing and mediocre people, so it should be very easy to make them for someone like Marik. He was, after all, handsome and intelligent and a great conversationalist and generally exceptional in all areas. Marik Ishtar was a delight.

That was what he told himself several months ago, and had as of now failed in a way that stung badly against everything he knew about himself. He'd tried, certainly, or at least told himself he did. He went places, sort of. The guy at the bike shop thought he was cool. Yet the objectively correct form of the universe, the one where Marik Ishtar is universally beloved and perpetually entertained, did not materialize. He always froze up, panicked, did not know how to start, never managed to move anything beyond the realm of tenuous acquaintance. He resented how much effort this took. Surely he should just be able to enter a room and instantly be the most interesting and enticing person there? He didn't understand why this was so hard or why he was so bad at it or what the problem was. Possibly the paralyzing idea that if someone didn't like him or he screwed it up somehow he couldn't just re-do it via partial magical lobotomy.

There was something so frustrating, unsettling, about a conversation where you couldn't make the other person say what you wanted them to say and whatever was going on in their head remained infuriatingly opaque. What if they hated you and thought you were ugly and stupid? They would be wrong, but what if they did? You couldn't know. And you couldn't even fix them.

He winced. No, don't think about fixing. He's better than that now. People are not things you tear apart to serve you. He knew that, obviously. He knew that very well and couldn't do it anymore anyway, so maybe everyone should leave him alone and think before accusing him of self-centered machinations.

It's just that making people like you is so much harder when you can't just make people like you.

So if a convenient lonesome weirdo his age was going to come back from the dead and end up on his doorstep, Marik was not going to let it escape. The fact that Bakura was loud, rude, breathlessly cynical, and had been involved in at least one stabbing was not disqualifying. The fact that Bakura vocally objected to being Marik's friend did not register as more than a minor obstacle. He would wear him down eventually.

So: use your overwhelming charisma and dominance to win over the loudmouth. Obtain new lackey. Er, friend. It was a foolproof plan, as Marik's plans always were, because he was a brilliant strategist and thinker. Anyone should be overjoyed to be Marik's friend. He was being very magnanimous by offering.

Marik opened the door for Bakura with a debonair flourish, and Bakura just rolled his eyes. Ungrateful ass.

Ishizu and Rishid were already in the living room, which was odd because Ishizu shouldn't be home for another hour or so. They were talking about something and abruptly stopped when Marik and Bakura walked in.

"Hey." he said. "Something going on?"

Ishizu's mouth was a thin line. "Marik," she said, "May we talk to you in the kitchen?"

"Hah!" Bakura smirked, gloating. "Sounds like you're in trouble."

Marik was not, in fact, in trouble.

"…kill every human being on earth." Ishizu finished, from across the kitchen island.

This took a second to sink in, mainly because it sounded ridiculous. Ishizu was not joking, though. She was calm, measured, and entirely serious, the same kind of polite but firm admonishing tone she used when lecturing collectors on repatriation or asking-but-really-telling you to do the dishes.

Rishid frowned distinctly. Marik put a hand on his hip. "He what?"

"That was the gist. I will admit I am not entirely clear on the details, and Yugi did not seem to completely understand it himself." she said, rapping her fingers on the counter. "They advised he could be very dangerous, and for us to keep an eye on him."

Well.

Boo.

Marik poked his head out of the kitchen doorway for a second, which Bakura noticed immediately and met his eyes with an expectant tilt of the head. Marik frowned, and squinted. Very little seemed to escape Bakura's notice. Marik had seen him all day, how he only half-listened to every conversation, ever on tense alert, and not so much as a bird flew by in the distance without earning a flick of his eyes in that direction. Bakura watched the world not distracted, necessarily, but like a gargoyle or a cat. Perfectly still until he wanted to act, and then he moved and spoke in quick, short bursts, before he went back to scanning the distance.

He didn't look like someone who would kill everyone on earth. Not that he was unintimidating. You wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, you know? He had a thin, hungry sort of face and looked like he ate nails for breakfast and could bench something impressive. World-destruction was just such a silly, abstract threat. What does that even mean? What does a person who tries to destroy the world even look like? Someone at least with a cape, or something. An evil wizard. Or a giant snake.

Marik ignored Bakura and ducked back in the kitchen.

"Has he said anything strange?" Ishizu asked, softly, in concern.

"No." Marik said. Bakura had in fact threatened to kill him a few times, but death threats had been the first things out of Marik and Bakura's mouths when they met last year, which meant they were an established practice and could not qualify as strange. Perfectly ordinary death threats between compatriots. Friendly, even. Besides, mentioning it would make his sister worry about him, and no one wanted to see how Ishizu got when she was worried about her family. Conniving and scary.

Marik went over the symphony of reasons this was, if true, very bad. Of course he'd known on some level that Bakura was not the most morally upright individual. There is a difference, though, between a few thefts, stabbings, and shadow games and threatening the entire world. Marik liked the world. He lived on it, and there was a great deal of it he still intended to see. And if Bakura was some kind of diabolical maniac then it was Marik's fault for dragging him in here and putting everyone in danger. And most importantly, Marik had already put a lot of stock in his very excellent trick-Bakura-into-being-friends-with-him plan and this information did not bode well for it.

"What do we intend to do?" Rishid asked, tacitly excusing himself from any serious decision making and leaving all initiative to them. Rishid did not readily offer a strong opinion on anything unless directly asked, or if someone was dying. Even then, it would often be short or he would still claim to have none. Most often his view must be intuited from his deference to or gentle pushback on whatever you suggested first. This, too, was Marik's fault; but no use prodding him now.

"Are you…sure it's him?" Marik asked. "Not a different Bakura?"

Ishizu did not make a face so much as very deliberately not make a face. Her tone stayed even, and did not betray any opinions she might have on the wisdom of or motivation behind that question. "Do you think it is a common name?"

"There's a least a few others I know of." That was slightly defensive.

"Yes, I am sure." Ishizu said, with a sigh. "What do you want to do, ask him?"

Bakura knew the siblings were talking about him. He did not know what they were saying, could not understand a word of whatever language the tombkeepers used with each other, recognizably Arabic but a little off, a little Egyptian. The sort of thing that happens when you lock people underground for centuries, let isolation and ancient liturgy twist their tongues. The words were unimportant, though. They had to be talking about him. What else could force such a clipped little discussion, deliberately out of his earshot?

Maybe this was going to get fun. Or maybe, he thought, scanning shiny things on the shelves, he should start planning his exit. Or both. Really no reason his exit couldn't also be fun. Dramatic exits were almost as good as dramatic entrances. Trouble was you never got to see everyone's faces afterward.

Bakura sat on the overstuffed, floral-print couch and flicked his eyes across the sun-soaked room. A TV hooked up to several fancy game systems, some of which he remembered from his ex-landlord's room, or Yugi Muto's room as seen through his ex-landlord's eyes. Nice dark wood furniture, plenty of quaint little antiques. One of those little bobbing-water-drinking-plastic-bird-things, which he knew instantly must be Marik's doing. Exactly the sort of pointless little toy he would covet.

Bakura did not believe in "nice." People do not do things for no reason. If someone is giving you something, and by necessity giving up something of their own, it is because they are getting something in return. Always. They may not be getting it from you; it may be something abstract or only valuable to them; it may be different than what they claim it is, or what it appears to be at first glance. But they are always getting something, and it is in your interest to know what that is.

He would find the price of Marik's kindness, and see if it was something he could live with, or otherwise cut off his stay. He thought this as he grabbed something out of a candy dish and immediately regretted it, because it was one of those fancy ones where they take perfectly good chocolate and ruin it with sea salt or peppermint or something. He fucking hated peppermint. He did not stop eating it.

"BAKURA!" Marik stepped back out, loudly and suddenly with a hand on his hip, switched into Japanese for him, over what sounded like Ishizu's vocal objection. "We called Yugi and he says you're some kind of world-destroying demon or something." he accused.

"You went and tattled to the pharaoh on me?" Right, Marik and Yugi were friends now, for some reason. Of course they were friends. The pharaoh was so good at collecting loyal little servants. A tombkeeper after all. "Great. What's he going to do, show up here and kill me a third time?"

Ishizu moved Marik out of the doorway with the politest sort of shove anyone had ever managed, Rishid following quietly behind her. "They have not made any plans regarding what to do about you." she said. How quickly he goes from a friend to be helped to a problem to be dealt with. "His only remarks were that they would consider it, and converse with the former host of the millennium ring."

Bakura, who had been lazing on their couch up until now, instantly sat up at attention upon hearing the last bit, leaning forward to listen intently. "He told Bakura?" Wait. Poorly formulated sentence. Rewind. "Other Bakura?" Better.

Ishizu studied him oddly, unsure what the question meant. "He said that he would."

"Did he say anything else about him?"

"Is that material?" she asked. "I was more concerned about the mass murder allegations. Is all of that true?"

Bakura frowned more. This woman would not give him any of the information he wanted, and he didn't know what he wanted to know anyway. Useless. He settled back into the couch and thought for a second. "No," he pronounced, putting his feet on the coffee table. "Don't be ridiculous."

"No?"

"Of course not." he announced, trying to keep a straight face but struggling not to break into a smile at his own joke. "What's true is that I did all of that twice."

The Ishtar siblings shared a look, something they seemed to be very good at.

He smiled in his best imitation of a lovable scamp. If they wanted a problem, he could be a problem. They didn't even know what they were getting into, with his ability to make himself a problem. "Didn't work, obviously, since we're all still here. Pity, isn't it? I suppose the third time is the charm."

This had the intended ripple effect, a drop in temperature throughout the room. "What do you mean," she asked, very carefully, "third time?"

"Nothing concrete yet. I was thinking here was a good base, since you've so graciously offered your hospitality. Sorry, do you disapprove of that?" This question was rhetorical, for fun, and he did not wait for any of them to answer. He jumped up and swept the trail of his coat behind him. "I suppose I have no choice, as I seem to have worn out my welcome." He sighed, and casually made his way towards the door, and in plain view, uncaring, nicked a tiny gold statue of Hathor off of the TV cabinet and slipped it into his sleeve.

"Where are you going?" Marik asked, crossing his arms.

"Somewhere else, Marik, since you're throwing me out." he snapped, irritated for a second. "Isn't it against the pharaoh's laws to harbor murderers and thieves? I would hate to get you in trouble with your tyrant."

In a revolting display of familial resemblance all three siblings made a near identical facial expression at the exact same time. A slightly vacant, mildly confused, disapproving little frown, like were sure they hadn't heard you right.

"You can't leave." Marik announced, in his authoritative little way that always made you want to do the opposite out of spite. "They told us to keep an eye on you."

"What, you want me to stay?" Bakura stopped, the little statuette heavy halfway down his sleeve. "Were you not listening?"

"We can't put you out on the street. You're 17." Ishizu said, and Bakura did not understand how that was relevant or even if it was exactly true, and certainly didn't understand why she said it like it was obviously the end of the matter. "And if you are dangerous, it is better here where you are supervised."

"Supervised?" He laughed like a stalling engine. Oh, what a suggestion. Absolutely not. "You think you're what, babysitting me?"

"Bakurasitting." Rishid commented, an almost inaudible aside, presumably because he couldn't resist.

"What are you going to do, imprison me?" He laughed again, and grinned. "I can promise you that isn't possible, though I invite you to try. Getting in and out of places is one of my greatest skillsets." It was probably not possible, he calculated, beneath the bravado. Right, no Diabound. Recall your new limits. Rishid was what, 6'5"? Marik wouldn't want to ruin his perfect manicure, but who knows if the priestess still had any magic. They couldn't keep him anywhere for long, anyway.

Again, though, his remarks just seemed to confuse them. "No?" Marik looked at him like he was very stupid. "But where else are going to go? Back to the valley? By the end of the month it's going to be freezing at night."

"I've lived here as long as you have, I know how the weather works. What do you care?"

"Why do I care that you are sleeping on the ground and washing your clothes in the river?" Marik's voice rose and he fought off a smile, seemed to think this was the stupidest question in the world, a very funny joke, and Bakura didn't see why. There was no reason that Marik should care.

Bakura held his trinket absently in one hand, the limbs of the figurine pressing uncomfortably into his palm, the metal now warm. He almost dropped it, trying to figure out exactly what was going on here. It would benefit him to keep freeloading, but why allow that, if they did not intend to restrain him? Pharaoh's orders? There must be a price. There is always a price.

Ishizu watched this back and forth not with disinterest but with weary patience, and calmly but curtly returned to the material facts. "We would like an assurance that you won't hurt us," she said, "if you do intend to stay."

"Hurt you?" He rolled his eyes, a little insulted. "I'm not mindless monster. You'd be feeding me." This did not seem to reassure them. He huffed. "Look, you said yourself the millennium items are gone, right? I have no access to magic, even if I did decide to try to destroy everything again. The worst I could possibly do is what, stab you all to death in your sleep?"

This was evidently the wrong answer, judging by the immediate aghast looks on all their faces. This was not fair, because it was a true answer, and things that are true should never be the wrong answer. Considering everything he used to be able to do, being reduced to mere pedestrian physical harm should reassure everyone.

"And considering historical precedent," he added, attempting to clarify that he wasn't threatening them, "Marik is far more likely to do that to the both of you than I am." This remark somehow did not improve things, despite also being factually true, and in fact the room got even colder. Marik in particular seemed to drop about six degrees, face curling like he'd just been slapped.

"That's—" he started, with the snobbiest little angry twitch, that something had touched a terrible nerve, how his kohl and leather instantly went from pretty to threatening just by changing his expression, but evidently he either couldn't think of a counter or otherwise restrained it. "I changed my mind." he stabbed the words, instead. "Get out."

Bakura laughed sharply. Marik was so much more fun to watch when he wasn't pretending to be nice.

Ishizu said something to him that Bakura didn't understand but clearly consisted of the word "Marik," followed by a gentle chastising. Marik snapped back with a bratty teenage verve, and stormed back off into the kitchen, shooting a glare at Bakura. Ishizu put a hand on her temple and looked very tired, for a second, but recovered her composure almost instantly. She swept off too, paying Bakura little mind, and soon he could hear them both bickering incomprehensibly. Rishid watched them with a frown but saw no need to intervene.

Bakura, left in limbo, twirled his little trinket between his fingers, trying to decide whether to put it back. "You." he said, to Rishid. "How long are they going to go on like that?"

Rishid thought about this. "Give them ten minutes." he said. "Do you want a cup of tea?"