FicWad

Title: Five Ways to Deal
Author: Sunfalling
Rating: NC17
Warnings: dark AU, language, rough sex

1. Attend a Funeral

In truth, it isn't a funeral, just a memorial service in an open field near the high school. Bakura doubts this crowd could handle an actual funeral complete with stiff corpses and dark suits. The entire middle school has turned out for the occasion, along with half the high school and assorted relatives, despite the threatening weather. Some are weeping openly, the trappings of their pitiful grief on display for all to see. Others just stand around, arms hugged close to their bodies, hands buried in pockets, wishing they had brought coats and wondering how much longer they have to take part in this uncomfortable ritual.

Four sixth graders died along with a high school assistant when their bus crashed three days ago. They had been on their way to compete in some kind of weekend inter-school science fair. Bad weather and poor road conditions were blamed.

Bakura stands a little away from the crowd smoking a cigarette and watching two children make faces at each other behind the backs of their solemn parents. If they knew the dead children, they certainly don't seem to care. Bakura laughs, a strange, harsh noise cutting through the soft murmur of voices. A few turn to stare at him, a thin boy in the smooth, navy-blue high school uniform with wild white hair and large eyes. He gives them a mocking grin and pulls the cigarette to his cold lips again; the long breath of smoke is the only warmth he feels. His fingers are numb. He digs a thumbnail into the soft flesh of his palm, but feels nothing.

Another icy gust of wind blows his hair around his face like the fingers of a wispy cloud. Across the field, he sees the length of a dark coat whip in the breeze. Bakura sneers slowly as his gaze fastens on the tall, lean figure of Seto Kaiba standing silently at the edge of the crowd with blank face of a poker star. He turns away from Bakura's silent stare and looks toward the front, where some sort of flower-remembering shit ceremony has started. All Bakura can see is the firm line of his shoulders under the dark coat and back of his head, covered with messy chestnut brown hair.

A single drop of cold liquid hits the back of Bakura's hand and then another plops against his scull. Little children shriek and parents groan as the heavy clouds finally begin to shed rain. Bakura laughs again at the confusion in the crowd. He watches Kaiba's head turn quickly and meets the stare of hard blue eyes. The rain falls faster now, as it should at a proper funeral, darkening Kaiba's hair and rolling down his face like tears. One drop slides down the bridge of his nose and Bakura can't help but smile maliciously. Kaiba isn't crying at all.

Aren't you going to grieve for your poor dead brother, you pathetic asshole?

Bakura's lips draw back to show Kaiba laughing white teeth, bright in a smooth, vicious face. You are nothing. He offers a final dramatic salute with a soggy cigarette as Kaiba turns and walks away.

2. See a Shrink

The school administration hires an actual grief counselor and informs students that those with close personal ties to the victims of the recent tragedy can attend sessions completely free of charge. Bakura rolls his eyes as an administrator announces it in class and pretends to be sleeping when she fastens a piteous gaze on him. He doesn't leave class with many of the weeping students: friends of the recently deceased high school student who had so foolishly decided to volunteer time on the middle school trip.

Instead, Bakura slouches in his chair and stares sullenly at the tiny words crawling across the open page of his textbook. Bakura isn't stupid; he just never cared much about school before-at least not the academic side. The things he likes about high school are the power structure, the pyramids and popularity and flimsy levels of authority. He loves how malleable adolescents are, how eager they are for recognition and acceptance. He loves how easy they are to manipulate, to push to the edge. Hanging around with Malik and his gang gave Bakura the thrill of absolute power in the delicate structure of the high school. But then Malik got busted for dealing shit and then, of course, Ryou guilted Bakura back into the classroom.

"We're going to graduate together," he tells Bakura firmly. "If you do this, I swear I'll be happy forever."

"Who says I want you to be happy?" Bakura grumbles, but they both know he has no ground anymore. In truth, he is passing most of his classes already and with a little work in English and Physics, he'll graduate easily. It seems a simple, painless thing to give Ryou, compared to all the painful gifts he's dropped on his brother before.

Although Ryou and Bakura were born as twins, it is easier to imagine their creation involved the work of a Dr. Jekyll-like mad scientist trying to separate the two halves of human nature. While Bakura spent his childhood stealing camera phones and slashing tires, Ryou was baking cookies for the old lady down the street and nursing stray cats back to health. Bakura stopped counting the times he heard people say, "Those boys look the same but they're complete opposites!"

Bakura tells himself that although he hurt Ryou countless times, he never let anyone else hurt his twin if he could help it. Anyway, Ryou usually didn't need his help; his pleasant nature made-makes him so ridiculously popular with everyone.

Idly, Bakura grinds a pencil into the surface of his desk, watching the graphite crumble into a dark powder. For the first time in a year, he saw Seto Kaiba in class, sitting in the back with the same old condescending scowl. Kaiba attended special classes at a local college since junior year but rumor has it that his grades dropped rapidly, forcing him to return to the sad little high school he deserted.

/Gifted child, my ass/, Bakura thinks spitefully.

"That poor boy," Ryou says sadly. "Mokuba was the world to him."

Bakura is about to deliver a snide reply when he sees the vice principal himself enter the classroom and approach his desk purposefully.

"I'm here to take you to the counseling session," he says, broad forehead wrinkling with concern. "It seems you didn't hear the noon announcement."

Bakura tries not to laugh, but he lets the man see that he is amused. "I don't require counseling, thank you."

"Just go," Ryou tells him. "Get it over with. You can make fun of them later."

Bakura considers the idea of mocking the caring old counselor and her grief-stricken followers. He really can't refuse Ryou anything these days. So when the man insists, he shrugs and stands.

Unfortunately, the counselor is nothing like he expected. Pegasus J. Crawford is a tall, elegant-looking man with long, white-blonde hair dressed in a wine-red suit. He smiles invitingly when Bakura enters. There are four girls and two boys in the room, including Seto Kaiba who sits in the back and stares out the window silently with his arms crossed-picturesquely unapproachable in his brooding manner.

Bakura smiles slowly back at Pegasus. He moves to sit next to a scrawny boy with hair spiked hair colored yellow, black, and red. If it weren't for the ridiculous hair he wouldn't even remember little Yuugi Mouto, the bully-magnet of the school...although, in the back of his mind, he recalls Ryou inviting the pipsqueak over a few times. The only other person Bakura recognizes is that plain-looking girl who seems to be Mouto's only other friend: Masaki, Mazaki, or something like that. She holds Mouto's grubby little hand patiently as he uses the other to wipe at reddened eyes.

The vice principal speaks softly to the counselor before leaving the room. Pegasus straightens and smiles directly at Bakura in a way that makes him oddly uncomfortable.

"Good to have you here, Bakura-kun," he says. You naughty boy! his eyes say. "We were just discussing how we feel about the people who have passed away. Our first reaction to loss is often stringent denial. I feel that most of you have gotten past that point, so now we're talking about ways to deal with the things we're feeling in the aftermath of this acceptance. Do you have any suggestions?"

Bakura makes a show of thinking hard. "Sex?" he offers finally. One girl gasps. Another muffles a giggle. Mouto looks at him in disbelief and then stares at the ground, embarrassed. Kaiba doesn't react at all and Bakura thinks he will have to try harder to rile the icy bastard.

Pegasus nods thoughtfully. "Yes, in some situations sexual activity can be healing when it is with someone you care about."

"I'm building a website to remember my cousin," one girl says, trying to change the subject.

"Is it a porn site?" Bakura counters.

"No!" She looks at him in shocked disgust.

"Bakura, I think Yamazuki-chan's suggestion is relevant. There's no need to ridicule it," Pegasus says gently.

Bakura's hand shoots up. "Pegasus-san, I have another idea!"

"Yes?" Pegasus asks indulgently.

"Drugs. Dope will help me deal."

Unruffled, Pegasus nods. His perfectly manicured nails brush slide against the leather arms of the chair. "That may be true. I prescribe drugs to some patients who need them to cope with depression."

"Nothing like some pot in the morning to keep your mood up," Bakura says.

Pegasus smiles indulgently. "Unfortunately, marijuana and other drugs can leave you feeling even more depressed after you come down off your high. I wouldn't recommend drug use without careful examination first, Bakura-kun."

"But you just told me that drugs will help me deal," Bakura argues.

"No...It depends on the circumstance..."

"Wait a minute," Bakura interrupts, "Is all this advice is circumstantial? If I build a memorial website it's fine, but not if it's a porn memorial? If I do drugs it's fine, but not good drugs?" He sighs and throws his hands into the air. "I suppose healing sex is fine, but what happens if I fuck Kaiba and end up with hepatitis? I'm going to sue you, Pegasus-san, you can bet on that."

Masaki-Mazaki makes a startled noise, Mouto burrows deeper in his seat, and the girl across the room snickers uncontrollably. Bakura can only smirk darkly. He relishes the feel Kaiba's heated glare burning a hole in his back.

"You little shit-eater," Kaiba hisses. But he doesn't do anything, just turns back to scowl out the window again, as if the pale-haired boy isn't even worth getting angry over and Bakura feels something hot and painful flare to life in his gut. He bites his tongue with the agony, a simple dislike for the aloof, haughty Kaiba bursting into full hatred. He runs his tongue over his teeth and continues to smile tightly.

"Oh dear, what have you gotten into now?" Ryou teases.

3. Flirt With Disaster

After looking over school records, Pegasus assigns Bakura to study-/study!/-with Seto Kaiba three days a week.

"Holy fucking hell," Bakura says.

"He's having some trouble with motivation in his own work," Pegasus explains, "but he's very bright and I think he could help you out a lot. Plus you two are both dealing with a similar loss and trying to settle your differences. It could be very healing."

Gradually, Bakura's frown turns into a leer. "Yeah, I'll heal him," he agrees.

"Good for you." Ryou says, trying not to laugh.

However, Kaiba certainly shows no interest in dealing, coping, or healing of any kind. At their first cozy study session he slams a pile of textbooks on the desk in the empty room and gives Bakura a look cold enough to freeze a bonfire.

"Let's get this over with," he says. "I have work to do."

"Oh, the mighty Kaiba actually works for a living?" Bakura sneers. Rumors floated around school that the Kaiba brothers were actually millionaires living with their rich step father. But he doubts this now, seeing the frayed ends of Kaiba's sleeves as he opens a textbook and flips pages furiously. Kaiba's fingers are knobby and skeletal; his face has the sunken, hollow beauty of a dying child. It is only now, seeing him without a coat or school jacket that Bakura can truly comprehend how terribly thin Kaiba has become, watching the sharp points of his elbows, the protrusion of his cheekbones.

"I have a program to finish," Kaiba says curtly. "Read this chapter and complete the exercises."

"Hai, sensei," Bakura replies mockingly.

But Kaiba neglects to respond, opening his laptop on the desk opposite from Bakura. The machine whirrs softly as it loads data and Kaiba's eyes lock the screen, refusing to acknowledge anything Bakura does.

Before, Kaiba seemed like a fortress, heavily guarded, shut off from all contact with great hostility. Old Kaiba wielded knife-sharp scorn and deep revulsion toward the lowly minions outside his fortress. But this new Kaiba has little contempt left, only lingering indifference for the outside world. Like an empty house, a blank wall, Bakura can look into his eyes and see nothing but empty rooms, deserted by all inhabitants.

Getting any kind of reaction from this stolid youth is a difficult task, but this becomes a game for Bakura, a fierce new challenge, the only thing to look forward to in the monotonous stretch of days.

This first time, he stands behind the figure of Kaiba seated at the desk, fingers flying over the keys of the laptop, typing long lines of code. The touch is a simple brush of fingers across the back of the other boy's smooth neck, stirring small, soft hairs and the rise of a vertebra under warm skin. Kaiba's reflexes jerk into action. He inhales loudly and wrenches to the side, his arm swinging swiftly to swipe at the offending hand.

There is a rough mixture of fear and anticipation throbbing in Bakura's mind, a sweet taste in his mouth as he stares into the blue accusation of Kaiba's eyes. When Kaiba asks what the hell is wrong with him, he laughs, little jagged sounds falling from his throat.

"There was a spider," he says smoothly, teeth shining to match his eyes. "Or maybe it was a fly. You should thank me."

"Keep you fucking hands to yourself," Kaiba orders, looking away listlessly. He is already losing a grip on whatever anger flared up in that brief moment. This departure from emotions frustrates Bakura to no end, but it is also a deep source of fascination, like poking at a dying man to see how long he will respond to pain.



The next day, there are bruises on Kaiba's lovely throat: dark bands of color under his jaw, a purplish-yellow thumb mark below his ear.

"Rough sex last night?" Bakura asks flippantly, reaching to touch the edge of a bruise. Kaiba's eyes flash briefly up to meet his, wide, startled, and flecked with gold from the light. The chestnut head jerks away from his touch and turns back to the book open on the desk.

"Focus on the lesson, moron," he growls. "Keep your fucking assumptions to yourself."

Bakura notes that he says nothing about hands this time.

They are actually able to study for some time, trading the occasional insult. Bakura doesn't like focusing on the silly words parading down the pages, but he has to admit that Kaiba makes it easier, directing his attention to what is most important and drilling him on the essentials. Sometimes Kaiba uses his laptop to pull up a graphic in order to illustrate a point, stooping over the glowing screen with stern intent. Bakura grows accustomed to the sound of his voice, the low, rough rhythm of his words in the empty room.

It's hard not to notice the weariness weighing down Kaiba's shoulders and the vague, subtle pain in the lines of his face and the edges of his cloudy blue eyes. All the fierce resilience is fading, like the remains of a smoking fire after the onslaught of a rainstorm. But he stares at the pages of the textbooks and the screen with calm intent. The shaggy red-brown hair falls over his ears and the sides of his face as he leans, obscuring his eyes from Bakura's view. One hand rests on the edge of the desk and Bakura notices the watch strapped to the bony wrist, a small, garish instrument with the image of a brightly-colored robot from some children's anime program. The plastic face of the watch is cracked from a hard impact.

"Are you paying attention, moron?" Kaiba asks impatiently.

"Of course, my dear sensei," Bakura replies, but the sting is suddenly gone from his insolence.



When Bakura works on a set of problems by himself, Kaiba focuses on his laptop and the game he is programming with great concentration. Today he came in limping slightly and there are harsh red swaths on his knuckles where the skin was scraped away. He hasn't even bothered to bandage them.

Outside the window, dark clouds hover perpetually, driven by the storm system rolling down the Japanese coast. Bakura stares out, listening to the rattle of the panes in the wind. He wonders, with some amount of jealously who it is that Kaiba actually allows to hurt him. These are not the sort of wounds to be self-inflicted and everyone in school knows better than to mess with Seto Kaiba. They say that he broke the leg of a kid in Jr. High and everyone learned better than to scuffle with the antisocial boy after he dislocated Katsuya Jounouchi's shoulder as a first year. Bakura is no push-over himself but he's seen Kaiba throw victims in judo class like a man tossing a sack of rice and he knows better than to test his strength against the taller boy.

Instead, he makes stealthy attacks: a hand against Kaiba's hip, the brush of his head against the other boy's shoulder. At first Kaiba reacts harshly, pushing him away and snarling threats, but this is only a feeble resistance, easily forgotten. Finally, he attempts to ignore Bakura's furtive gropes, realizing perhaps that reacting only fuels the white-haired boy's glee.

Bakura likes this game. He touches the backs of Kaiba's arms through his uniform, encircles the frail, pulsing width of a wrist. His fingers trace a taunt tendon on the bruised neck as Kaiba turns his head, skim over the soft ridge of an ear. He relishes the feel of warm, living skin, the subtle scent of thick, earth-brown hair, the tightly-stretched tension straining beneath Kaiba's flesh in silent rebellion.



"You like him," Ryou declares in a sing-song voice.

Bakura sits on the iron railing on the roof of the school smoking a cigarette and watching the wide spread of empty green field under smoke-gray skies. He was enjoying a soda, admiring the long legs of the schoolgirls walking away from class, holding down their skirts against the gusts of wind. For a moment, the image of Kaiba's long trench coat whipping in the air like a mourning veil came into his mind. Then Ryou had to say something.

"What the fuck?" Bakura replies, nearly falling off the edge.

"You love Seto Kaiba," Ryou continues to sing. "You want to marry him and have his babies."

Bakura is dumb with shock for a moment. "Nani...? When did you get to be such a little bastard?" he asks with stark amazement.

"It's terrible I know," Ryou admits, chuckling, "but somehow I don't really care. I think, because we're sharing this body, I'm starting to become more like you and you're more like me."

"Like hell," Bakura says vehemently. But he's afraid. Like Kaiba, his anger is slipping away, along with a lifelong fascination for the obscene. For the first time he is actually studying to pass classes-and doing it with an actual human being. Of course there is an ulterior motive here. In truth, his obsession with control and destruction has simply transferred to an obsession with the controlled destruction of Seto Kaiba.



As Kaiba checks his homework that afternoon, he stares at the name at the top of the page.

"Yami? What kind of name is Dark Bakura?" he scoffs. "Did you actually think that was cute or something?"

Standing behind him, Bakura remembers when he started calling himself Yami. He liked the way it contrasted the sharp differences between himself and his twin. But Ryou refused to go by 'Hikari' and said the whole thing was silly. "You're not a bad person," he told Bakura sternly.

Bakura laughs, as he did then. "You don't think I'm cute, sensei?"

Kaiba gives him a long-suffering eye roll of disgust before turning back to the paper. His eyes track steadily down the length of the sheet, rapidly reading the kanji. Bakura moves closer, bending so that he can see the small, dark hairs at the base of Kaiba's neck. He covers them with one hand and watches the shoulders tighten visibly beneath the uniform. Kaiba's breathing is controlled and his eyes continue to crawl the lines of writing on the paper. A light sheen of sweat forms under Bakura's palm and he moves it over the warm, soft surface of the neck, brushing the longer cinnamon hair of the scalp.

"You really fucked this one up," Kaiba says, circling characters with his pen.

Bakura watches the firm motion of his hand, the long, thin fingers with short, clean nails. There are shallow grooves in the surface of his thumbnail, like little troughs, and a long pink scar stretches down the length of his index finger.

Kaiba sighs, a short breath of air in the empty room. Bakura's left hand moves down over his shoulder to grip the firm flesh of the upper arm. At the same time, his right hand moves lower to slip under the hem of the white shirt, lifting the coarse fabric. The skin of Kaiba's back is even warmer than his neck, a feverish heat that seems to crawl into Bakura's body. The pale skin stretches tight over the bony surface of Kaiba's back and the other boy's fingers map the gentle curve of ribs spreading from a long, lovely spine jutting visibly through its thin covering. This feeling is smooth and cool in Bakura's mind: the beauty of this skinny, dying seventeen year-old.

His mouth presses softly against Kaiba's shoulder as his fingers dips beneath the waistband of the trousers, following the path of the spine to its root. Kaiba reacts with a vengeance. Reflexes dulled by the faint buzzing in his body, Bakura is unable to dodge the arc of a swift fist that knocks him to the ground. He crouches on the floor, head ringing, and reaches gingerly to throbbing pain on the side of his jaw.

Kaiba has already gone back to correcting the paper.

Hands on the cold floor, Bakura watches the movement of Kaiba's elbow as he writes something on the sheet, the little watch on his wrist reflecting the light from the lamp on the desk.

"My first name is actually Ryou," he says to Kaiba's back. He's dizzy and the words are slurred by the painful movement of his jaw.

"Your brother's name was Ryou," Kaiba replies without turning. "Everyone knows that." And then, coldly, "He's dead if you haven't noticed."

The laughter starts in Bakura's stomach and works its way up through his throat, wracking his body. He can't stop it even though it feels like the entire side of his face is swelling with pain. Kaiba doesn't know, of course. No one knows that even though Ryou's body may be dead and burned to ashes, his spirit lives on, sharing the vessel of his brother.

"You really are insane," Kaiba mutters incredulously, turning his head at last. "I always suspected it."

Catching his breath, Bakura smiles malevolently. "I'm not the one wearing my dear little brother's accessories." He smirks at the defensive way Kaiba jerks his arm to himself. "Stealing from the dead, I think they call it."

Kaiba's out of his chair in a second, face drawn with rage. Bakura feels his bravado drain away in the face of this fury and he reaches into his pocket for the cool metal of a little pen knife. But Kaiba stops a few feet away from the other boy's crouched form and just looks at him, skin taunt and pale, eyes wide. His lips part as though to speak and then close into a hard line. Walking past Bakura, he opens the door.

"Run away, Kaiba, run away!" Bakura calls, still grinning. He laughs at the slammed door, a futile, triumphant gesture.

Alone in the room, he stands, still rubbing a sore jaw. Outside the window, the sky roils with rain-swelled clouds. All week, the news stations have reported on the advancement of the typhoon on the coast coming closer and closer.

The crumpled homework sheet lies on the desk next to Kaiba's laptop and Bakura moves to pick it up and stares at the strong, confident lines of Kaiba's corrections. Next, he goes to the laptop, moving the mouse to reveal the screen full of programming codes.

"Mokuba told me about this game," Ryou says sadly. "It was going to be his birthday present. He was really excited."

"And dear dedicated Kaiba is determined to finish it," Bakura says, snickering. "What's he going to do when it's done? Burn it up the disc and mingle the ashes with Mokuba's? Or maybe he thinks the little monkey will come back from the dead when his beloved game is ready for him."

"Grief is a powerful thing," Ryou replies quietly.

"Maybe he'll fulfill his responsibility and then kill himself," Bakura murmurs. But the scenario doesn't sound nearly as amusing when he speaks it aloud and the pain in his face makes him nauseous.

What comes after graduation? He wonders vaguely, but Ryou doesn't seem to hear.

4. Run away

In the restroom, Bakura peers into a smudged mirror, studying the features of the boy looking back at him. This boy has spiky hair white as snow that falls down the back of his neck and fierce golden-brown eyes. His face is small and hard, all sharp angles and cunning, no traces of gentleness. No matter how he twists it, tightening his mouth, relaxing his piercing eyes, he cannot make it look like Ryou's: warm, forgiving and full of patience.

"Why the fuck did you have to volunteer for that stupid field trip?" he asks between clenched teeth.

Ryou sighs but says nothing.

Bakura is furious. The skin on the left side of his face is bright red and slightly swollen, but not enough to account for this gut-wrenching sickness in his flesh.

"You're fucking dead, you little shit," he hisses.

"I'm living inside of you," Ryou insists urgently. "I'm still here."

"Shut up!" Bakura hears his voice echo off the tiles, reverberating with denial. "What comes after graduation? We share an apartment, flip burgers? I hold conversations with myself all day, scream at myself in the toilet...what more evidence do I need?"

"You really are insane," Kaiba said.

Bakura digs his fingers into his eyes, bruising the lids, biting his tongue with the pain. Ryou is suddenly suspiciously silent. The first stage of grief is denial; everyone knows that. Faggy Pegasus could have told him that. There's probably some fancy psychiatrist name for a disorder where you pretend a dead person is talking to you.

Bakura tastes blood in his mouth and removes his fingers from his eyes. The room is a painful, swirling blur and the face in the mirror grins back at him like a demented demon, empty of all life like a deserted house. Silence crushes down on his chest and he vomits in the sink, tears leaking from bruised and burning eyes.

Ryou says nothing.



As typhoon winds rise, the announcement comes out around 3 o'clock that school is dismissed for the day. The wind shakes the windows, spraying sheets of rain over the panes in shimmering curtains. Students begin the exodus to their homes, heads bent against the strong gusts, coats wrapped tightly.

Bakura watches them from the room on the third floor, twisting the pen knife in his fingers. The building empties itself rapidly, spilling its life onto the rain-slicked streets. Only Bakura remains, the lone soul in its hollow shell. On the surface of the desk where Kaiba usually sits with his laptop, Bakura carves /Ryou Was Here/. The words are faint and insubstantial: thin, spidery lines on the vast smooth surface. He closes the knife and drops it into his pocket.

On the roof, the rain hits his face like little bullets, hard and painful. The wind tears roughly at his jacket, pushing him back. Bakura takes it off and drops it over the edge of the roof, watching it whirl and fly against the side of the building like some dark, deranged bird, descending to the ground at last. He puts a foot on the iron railing that lines the edge of the roof and hoists his body up. The top rail is flat and wide enough for him to balance on, he thinks.

"Bakura," he hears someone call. It's not Ryou.

He turns to sit on the rail, facing away from the edge. Kaiba stands in the doorway of the entrance to the stairs, hair black with moisture, face shining with rain.

"You need to get out of the building," he shouts through the wind. His forehead is tight with lines of anger. "Everyone is gone."

Bakura laughs. "Everyone!" he calls back. "Everyone is gone!"' Ryou hasn't answered him all day, no matter how he curses or pleads or threatens. "There's no one left," he tells Kaiba.

The wind roars in his ears. He knows how insane he must look now: a strange, thin boy crouched on the railing in the rain like some desperate animal. His white hair is plastered against his scull and neck; his shirt is stuck to his shivering body. But still he smiles, teeth shaking, eyes maniacally bright.

Kaiba walks across the roof toward him without hurry. His long trenchcoat covers his uniform and the wind rips at it like a mad thing. He stops in front of Bakura, jaw clenched, gaze burning with a fierce intensity.

"Do you really think I'm going to stop you?" he asks, voice burning with acidity. "I couldn't care less if you jump off the roof of your school like some melodramatic girl. You'll just become another pathetic, weak fool, another sad teenage suicide statistic, blown away and broken down because someone else died." His face twists with anger. "It hurts, idiot. Get over it."

Liquid fire rushes up in Bakura's chest, chasing away the numbing fog of indecision. "Fuck you, Kaiba," he snarls, clenching the rail hard enough to feel the hard edges bite back into his palms. Rain stings in his eyes.

"Yeah, fuck me, loser," Kaiba returns vehemently, "But you have to kill yourself first."

Bakura puts one heel up on the top rail, easing his way up. His eyes lock with Kaiba's staring into turbulent blue. He feels defiant and desperate and ultimately damned. His other shoe slides onto the flat top rail and his body balances, crouched there, clutching the rail with both hands. Kaiba doesn't blink. His skin is white as ice, the only color in his face is the purplish-pink of his cold, tight lips and the flaring depths of his eyes. /I want you/, Bakura thinks fervently, /I want to tear you apart/.

He licks the sweet rain from his lips. If I stand now, the wind will surely knock me over/, he thinks. /If I stand now, I'll fall for certain. He strains his muscles, pushing back against the hard surface of the rail. He stands.



Malik played a game with Bakura when they were together: a game about sex and death. As they kissed, he ran a blade down the side of Bakura's throat, slowly and seductively. If Bakura became too excited or too forward, the blade would cut his skin, but the white-haired boy calculated his advantage with care and he never forgot about the hairline fracture between pleasure and punishment.

When he first met Malik, the boy was a second year transfer of middle-eastern descent with bronzed skin, luminous eyes, long hair bleached yellow as wheat. He saw the perversity in Bakura's hungry gaze and matched it with a twisted lust of his own. Bakura never tired of watching the slide of muscle under the intricate tattoos that stretched down his back and he met Malik's undisguised leer with a cool indifference, keenly aware of the power in seduction.

For Bakura, the thrill came from taking. He stole the purses of girls in class, the watch of the principal, the motorcycle of the gym teacher. But the arrival of Malik taught him the delight of controlling people, the ability to turn people against each other and against themselves. Beneath the surface of the school, Malik became the authority that mocked authority, the ruling power of the school gangs and all illicit dealings.

In Bakura's mind, the young leader was always the unknown factor, the strength of a genius wrapped in the treachery of a snake. But the magnetism of Malik was undeniable and Bakura found himself drawn in, even as he skirted the edges of a bloody obsession.

Marik often sucked and licked the blade of his knife when he was bored, humming softly in the back of his throat. It was a pretty weapon with a silvery sheen and pearlesent handle studded with small gems. Bakura never allowed Malik to cut him with it, but he said nothing when the golden boy passed it gently over his naked flesh or buried it in his white hair spread over the pillow as they fucked. Sometimes Malik cut his own tongue by accident or design and he kissed Bakura to allow the other boy the rich taste of blood. This foolish, careless dance on a delicate line between sex and danger always turned them both on beyond imagining.

It was only until the sweaty, humid night when Bakura awoke naked, the knife at his throat and terror thundering in his chest, that the game meant nothing. Malik crouched over his body, holding the knife in shaking hands, his eyes glassy and unfocused from whatever cocktail of drugs he had injected.

Bakura's mind did not go to the glittering weapon or the hot blood sliding down his skin from a shallow cut. It did not go to the crazed lust in Malik's face or the weight on his body. He thought instead of his quiet, vulnerable other half, the opposite brother with open brown eyes. Who will protect Ryou if I die from this psycho's fucking hallucinations? he thought. Who will watch over that kid if I'm dead?

Only then did Bakura decide that he didn't really want death after all.



The wind is strong. The force of the typhoon rushes at him like a freight train and he falls, unable to cry. His knee hits the iron hard as he tumbles to the side, away from the edge and onto the tall, yielding form of Seto Kaiba. In the strength of the wind, they collapse in a tangle of limbs on the cold, hard tile of the roof. Kaiba makes an angry, painful noise between his teeth. Lying on top of him, Bakura is surprised at the sudden sensation of warmth, the shock of beating life beneath pale skin.

"You fell the wrong way, idiot," Kaiba growls, pushing him up.

Bakura thinks to say something about the direction of the wind gust, but Kaiba is already straightening, pulling his stumbling, numbed body toward the covered stairway. The flat, square tiles are slick under his feet and wet leaves fly at them, plastering to the back of Bakura's body. His knee aches and stings; he imagines Kaiba feels worse.

Inside the building, Kaiba wrestles the door shut against the wind and shrugs off his long coat, dropping it on Bakura's drenched form. He meets the other's bemused expression with a signature cold glare.

"I didn't come all the way back and drag your psychotic ass out of the rain to have you die of hypothermia."

Wearily, he slouches against the wall beside the stairs, long legs spread out on the dirty floor. Bakura crouches beside him, pulling the Kaiba-smelling coat close. The inner lining is still comfortably dry and warm. Somewhere inside himself, he touches the raw void of Ryou's silence and draws back quickly, confused and afraid.

Kaiba leans over him, reaching into one of the pockets of his coat. His body radiates an elusive heat and stubborn survival. From the coat's right pocket, Kaiba takes a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.

Outside, the wind howls and pounds at the walls. In the dark silence of the unlit stairwell, the tiny flame of the lighter shines a surprisingly bright flame. Bakura is mesmerized by the red glow of the lit cigarette in Kaiba's lips, the heat, the light, the thickness of his dark eyelashes and soaked hair. The front of his shirt that wasn't covered by the coat is soaked through, revealing hints of pale pink skin where it sticks to his chest.

Kaiba meets his stare unflinchingly, pupils huge in the darkness.

"Give me a drag," Bakura whispers, reaching for the cigarette.

Kaiba frowns and jerks it away from his grasp, but Bakura is already on his knees, crawling up into the other boy to get it. There's a brief struggle, all sharp elbows and nimble fingers, where Kaiba curses loudly and the cigarette hits the floor, extinguishing itself. Bakura catches Kaiba's hand and brings it to his mouth, sucking on the burnt finger.

"You sick little..." Kaiba jerks away from him again and Bakura has to pin the taller boy against the wall with the weight of his body and both arms in order to kiss him properly on the mouth. Kaiba's warmth overwhelms him. He wants to sink into this delicious heat and live here forever. But Kaiba turns his head, gasping and Bakura's mouth trails over his cheek and jawbone.

"Don't-" he starts to say. Bakura digs a hand into his thick wet hair and pulls his head back, kissing the open mouth with ruthless force. Finally, Kaiba stops fighting, shocked by the sudden pain...or perhaps simply choosing indifference over reaction.

Unhindered, Bakura explores his mouth with great delight, tongue sliding against soft lips and slick teeth. One hand tangles in sleek, damp hair while the other presses against Kaiba's chest, measuring his heartbeat. He feels Kaiba's quick, rough breaths in his own throat, the greedy thrust for life. Bakura gasps at the sensation. He wants more of this, more of Kaiba. His hands claw at the front of the other boy's soaked shirt, trying vainly to push hard buttons through the wet fabric. Kaiba shifts away in resistance and Bakura bites his bottom lip hard. The body beneath him seems to roll, sinking backwards in surrender and Kaiba makes a strange, harsh sound in his mouth.

So the cold bastard likes getting hurt, Bakura thinks, surprised and exhilarated.

From his pants pocket he takes the little penknife and skillfully slices the stubborn buttons from the front of the shirt. Pushing the open garment off Kaiba's shoulders, he moves it down the arms, tying it quickly where the wrists come together. Kaiba turns his head to look at the knot with an expression of dazed dislike. To get his attention, Bakura touches his throat softly, running the tips of his fingers over its contours. Kaiba's neck has always been something of a fascination for him: long and white in its nudity, like something a renaissance artist would paint. Bakura sucks at a warm hollow and traces blue veins with the tip of his tongue.

Beneath him, Kaiba shivers slightly, hands clenching at the twisted shirt around his wrists. His head turns away in denial, but his breath comes in fast, short inhalations. Bakura touches the lean length of his side in wonder. There are striking white and pink scars on Kaiba's chest of great variety: smooth and jagged, short and long and painful-looking. Against Kaiba's milky skin, his own looks positively golden. Kaiba's chin drops as he looks at the hand resting on the gap between his ribcage and hip. The expression at his face frightens Bakura and he kisses Kaiba's temple with surprising gentleness. Kaiba looks at the hand like a half-dead beast stares down at the metal trap clamped on its leg with a starved resignation.

"You're not dead," Bakura says. His hand slides up the smooth expanse of skin and he rubs his fingers lightly against a tight, dark nipple. Kaiba flinches and closes his eyes defensively. Bakura dips his head to lick greedily at the damp skin, savoring the taste of rain and sweat. The chest beneath his mouth expands and contracts with sharp, short breaths. The heart beats a frantic rhythm.

"Stop," Kaiba hisses through clenched teeth, his voice shaking.

Picking up the little knife from the floor, Bakura draws it over the skin of the boy's chest in a quick, decisive cut, drawing strange, shocked cry. Kaiba stares at the blood welling from the shallow incision with wide eyes and a slack mouth. He gasps sharply when Bakura bends to lick the blood away with his small, quick tongue, like some eager animal.

"You're alive, see?" Bakura says, rising to kiss Kaiba again. The taste of the blood is sweet and reminiscent of wilder times; he gives it to Kaiba with a selfless ardor, sharing the flavor of existence.

The other boy's mouth opens easily for him and his bloody tongue slides inside. Kaiba's muscles strain and his shoulders push forward. Suddenly he is responding, kissing Bakura back with unbridled hunger.

"Mngh," Bakura moans. The heat comes upon him like a flood, singing through his body. Kaiba's hot, wet mouth shifts frantically against his as they fight against the strange, insatiable hunger. Dropping the knife again, Bakura's fingers tighten on the flesh they rest on. He breaks away from the kiss, bending to lick the cut once more. Kaiba pants, making little rough noises and Bakura gasps in reply, overwhelmed by the body pressed against him, the fear and anger and raw need in Kaiba's flesh. Bakura pinches lightly at the nub of a nipple, eliciting a sharp, sweet cry from his victim. Kaiba's body rolls into him, vibrating with unconscious desire. Mouth pressed against his collarbone, Bakura moans in reply, electrified by the other boy's arousal.

"Fuck," he breathes and reaches down between Kaiba's thighs to cup the hard heat through his trousers.

"Nn...no," Kaiba gasps. His eyes are wide and black and turned toward the ceiling; only a slight ring of blue around the pupils shows in the darkness. The shirt around his wrists makes a tearing sound, but Bakura barely hears it. He rubs harder, moving his hand with an awkward exuberance, mouth open with stark, transfixed desire to watch Kaiba's head roll back against the wall.

Kaiba's exposed throat is shockingly beautiful. His body curves in a perfect line from the soft underside of his chin, down the long column of his neck and the flat plane of his sternum, between dark nipples, stark ribs, and the jut of sharp hipbones. Bakura wants to lick the delicate depression on his navel. Instead he slips his hand underneath the clothing to grasp hot flesh. Kaiba grits his teeth and struggles to remain silent, but his unruly body thrusts desperately into Bakura's palm. Bakura buries his face in the other boy's neck, groaning at his own uncontrollable reaction.

Little guttural sounds escape past Kaiba's clenched teeth. He snarls at his own weakness, biting his lips in frustration as his body continues to roll rhythmically.

/It's too late/, Bakura thinks, /too late/. He gasps for air against Kaiba's slick, sweaty skin. The friction between their bodies burns his fears away.

"Aah," Kaiba cries, opening his mouth at last. His eyes roll back in his head and tears run down the sides of his nose. "No," he groans. "No."

It's too late. Bakura can feel the body breaking under his hands as the harsh rhythm reaches its peak. Kaiba comes with a soft sound like a sob. He sags against the wall, breathing hard, eyes closed, hair sticking up at strange angles.

Watching him, Bakura is harder than he's ever been in his life, but he won't touch himself. Seeing Kaiba defeated like this is reward enough. He wipes his sticky hand on the other's pants with casual indifference. Kaiba doesn't move.

"Really, Kaiba, is an orgasm that horrible?" the white-haired boy asks mockingly. "You're like some reluctant, wilting virgin." He adds, in a shrill voice, "No, I'm a good girl! Don't do this to me!"

Immediately, Kaiba's eyes snap open, and Bakura is momentarily startled by the smoldering intensity in them. With a violent ripping noise, his hands come free and he tosses the ruined shirt into Bakura's stunned face. He pushes it away absently and Kaiba lunges forward, catching his arm and twisting it back over his head.

With a pained cry, Bakura hits the hard floor, his head clunking against the cold cement. Kaiba leans over him, eyes narrowed, face hard with anger. His hair is beginning to dry and it stands up messily from the ministrations of Bakura's fingers. With his left hand, he captures Bakura's other arm and pins them both above his head.

"I knew you liked it rough," Bakura hisses, an unfamiliar fear sliding through his mind.

Kaiba kisses him violently with the awkward movements of a child who doesn't know what he's doing but is determined and angry enough to try. Bakura's breathing speeds up again as he tries to match the other boy's movements, but the force of Kaiba's mouth overwhelms him. Crushed and struggling for air, he jerks his head sideways to suck oxygen through bruised lips. He yelps in surprise as Kaiba bites his jaw harshly, teeth clamping tightly.

"I didn't bite that hard," he starts to complain, but Kaiba grabs a fistful of white hair and yanks his head down again. The pain makes Bakura dizzy, but he likes Kaiba's intense passion and the weight of his warm body. Experimentally, Kaiba licks and scrapes his teeth the side of his neck. The slick, wet sensation sends shivery thrills under his skin. Kaiba's knee is pressed tight against his already stiff erection and he rubs against it, moaning softly at the contact.

Kaiba doesn't bother with knives or buttons, he simply pushes Bakura's shirt up with one hand, revealing the heaving chest and tight stomach. "Mm," Bakura murmurs, feeling Kaiba's lips against his nipple. His eyes widen and his frame jerks as Kaiba bites down hard.

"Shit!" His body jolts like a live wire, sparking with pain and pleasure. "Wha..." He gasps again, drawing in a rough breath as Kaiba's teeth tighten on the other nipple. That hurts! he tells himself, but his dick has other ideas and his pelvis thrusts upward to grind into Kaiba's abdomen.

"Un," he groans. Kaiba bites a tight line down his side, breathing hard against the pained flesh. When his sharp, insistent teeth catch the soft flesh of his stomach, Bakura wails and thrashes. Tears prick his eyes and he feels blunt nails digging into his wrists and his side. The pain is overtaking the pleasure and he wants to tell Kaiba that it doesn't have to be like this, not this hurried punishment for sinful release. It doesn't have to hurt like this.

As Kaiba's hand goes to the button on his fly, for the first time, he thinks of the word /rape/. It is a strange and surreal concept for the mighty Dark Bakura, but here he is, held down on the floor of the school building by an angry young man who is obviously much stronger.

"Kaiba," he rasps. Sweat slides down his neck and he hears the growl of the zipper pulling sliding down. Kaiba's face is blank as he pulls down the pants and underwear, freeing the stiff erection. Bakura feels dizzy with fear and arousal. He notices how the walls around him tremble and the typhoon winds cry in the distance. Kaiba releases his wrists and bends down slowly, resting one hand on Bakura's hip and pushing the other against his thigh. His calluses are rough against the sensitive skin and he clenches hard, lowering his head. Bakura can't breathe.

Kaiba takes the hard cock into his mouth without flinching, as though he is doing something he always has and Bakura has to push himself upward with his elbows to see the beautiful sight of a shirtless Seto Kaiba swallowing his dick like a candy bar.

"Fucking god." If this is a dream, he certainly doesn't plan on waking up anytime soon. Kaiba grips the base of the shaft and rubs it lightly between his fingers, calluses like little, rough pads of stimulation. His mouth is like a furnace and his dexterous tongue twists sinuously over the hard flesh.

Where the hell, did Kaiba learn to give blowjobs? Bakura wonders dazedly through the warm fog in his brain. The mouth around his cock vibrates as Kaiba growls suddenly and Bakura's arms give out. He falls back to the filthy cement, panting for air in the broiling heat of the room. Involuntarily, his spine curves, pressing his shoulders into the floor and lifting his hips up towards the pleasure. The pressure builds in his groin until he knows it can't last and he sighs with anticipation for the end.

Kaiba stops. He releases the swollen shaft from his mouth, still gripping the base with one hand. He glowers down at a shivering, panting Bakura from dark blue eyes.

Bakura clenches his teeth, body screaming in agony, aching for release. "You bastard," he hisses, starting to sit up.

Kaiba squeezes his cock hard and his elbows weaken again, sending his head back to the floor with a surprised groan. Smoothly, Kaiba bends to take it back in his mouth again, sucking lightly on the head. His tongue is almost rough on the hyper-sensitive skin.

Eyes rolling to the ceiling, Bakura feels that his body is melting together into this soft, liquid mass of nerves and sensations. It has becomes something he cannot control: this desperate, molten rhythm. Here on the cold, hard floor of the school stairwell in the middle of a hurricane, he is lying in the dark with wet leaves in his hair, helpless to do anything but thrust into the increased pressure, pushing toward an imminent breaking point. Behind his eyes, he starts to see white.

And then Kaiba stops. His face is dark and intense, with no sign or pleasure or glee in Bakura's suffering. This is something of a punishment, a revenge, but it seems more like a quest to drive the white-haired youth beneath him even more insane that he already is.

Bakura swears again, thrashing against the floor. His hands grope toward his stomach, but Kaiba yanks them away. Even as the taller boy begins the torture again, Bakura curses viciously until he runs out of words. His muscles burn with the strain and exertion. Scrabbling against the floor, his fingernails scrape cement painfully. When Kaiba's teeth scrape lightly over the skin of his cock, he arches back so far he can see the wall behind his head, cracked and grimy. A spider perched there stares back at his flushed, desperate face and wild eyes.

Losing himself, he screams. The room blurs out of recognition again, wavering, its edges glowing white. Bakura's eyes clench shut and he grabs a fistful of Kaiba's smooth hair in one hand, bringing the other boy's head down as he thrusts upwards, pounding into the tight heat. Kaiba chokes and coughs against the onslaught, pulling away. But Bakura is too close, too far gone and he empties himself into the reluctant mouth.

The world slows to the collapse of his body on the cement in a lazy, sweaty sprawl. He feels boneless, like cooling wax. There is only the rapid beat of his heart and the slowing of his hard breathing.

Kaiba coughs and spits on his stomach. Flinching, Bakura opens his eyes to stare back at the taller boy whose eyes are wide with disgust and horror. Kaiba wipes his mouth his long fingers, standing shakily to back away from the other boy. He spits again, on the floor and turns back to Bakura, looking down with revulsion.

"Get off my coat," he says.

The intensity in his voice is so sharp that Bakura seriously thinks about shifting. Unfortunately, his body has temporarily abandoned all commands from his brain and continues to lie indolently, heavy with fulfillment. He thinks to himself that Kaiba's coat feels really good and Kaiba looks really good without a shirt, despite his emaciated condition.

"It's got jizz on it," Bakura replies sleepily. Well, he can't really tell, but it probably does. His body aches pleasantly and he feels like falling asleep right here.

Kaiba makes a rough, angry sound in his lovely white throat and turns away. Closing his eyes, Bakura can hear the other boy's hard footsteps on the stairs as he flees the building. Clonk, clonk, clonk. They grow fainter.

"Run away, run away," Bakura sings under his breath. It sounds like something Ryou would say. He moves his fingers gingerly to see if he still can.

The room is getting colder now but the winds have died down to soft sighs punctuated by the occasional rattle or hiss. His shoulder blades are starting to hurt along with his thighs and the back of his scull. Alone, he lies on the cement, hair darkened with dirt, shirt pushed up under his armpits. His fly is open and his limp dick hangs out like a flag of surrender. On his stomach, a mixture of semen and saliva is beginning to dry unpleasantly.

"Shit," he says to no one, to himself, to the voyeuristic spider on the wall.

At least he still has Kaiba's coat.



5. Stay

In the aftermath of the storm, students are assigned to clean up around the school, raking up leaves and branches, picking up shattered glass and debris. Bakura finds Kaiba in the old art building, taping plastic to a broken window. A pretty, plump girl stands beside him, holding the tape and scissors with happy enthusiasm.

"You, the teacher wants you," Bakura says, catching her eye with a tight smile.

"What?" Her eyes widen in confusion. "Who are you?"

He puts a hand on her shoulder, digging his fingernails into the muscle. His grin is sharp and viciously feral.

"I'm sorry, you didn't hear me? I said, fuck off, bitch."

Helpfully, he takes the materials from her and watches her scamper down the hall, tears welling in her bright eyes.

Kaiba grasps the tape from his hands and rolls off another long strip, face cool and blank as stone. Decisively, he applies it to the plastic in one smooth movement. Bakura watches the veins on his hands, the cigarette burn on his finger, the cracked watch glinting on his wrist.

Don't ignore me, he wants to say. Don't wrap yourself up in that icy world of pretending. He grits his teeth. I made you bleed. I have little dark bite-marks all over my body like bruises. I saw your fucking scars. Whoever is hurting you, making you suck him off, I'll kill him if you want it. Look at me, you cold bastard.

But Bakura says nothing. Slowly he lifts he hand and rests it on the back of Kaiba's neck, feeling the warmth of the skin, the thickness of the hair all over again. Beneath his palm, he senses the tensing of the shoulders, the tightening of the neck, the nearly imperceptible traces of emotion. Inwardly, Kaiba is tearing slowly, breaking with a deep, penetrating fear. His flesh roils with denial and a bitter, hidden grief. Losing, he strains against conflicting revulsion and desire like a hungry man before rotting fruit. Like some wild animal, he is poised to run, to shrug off these feelings with anger or indifference.

He doesn't pull away from Bakura or push his hand away. He doesn't try to meet Bakura's eyes. He doesn't speak at all.

Most importantly, he doesn't run.















-end-