Angel Corrupted

OMFG! Finally this chapter is finished (if only because I cut some scenes...)! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: If YGO t'were mine I'd be happy and rich. As it is, I do not, and therefore am not-rich and only generally content. oo

A/N: Thar be stuffs! AU, possible OOC-ness (they did grow up differently, eh?), bloody stuffs, some swearing...shounen-ai! Yami/Yugi, slight Bakura/Ryou and Yarik(Yami Marik)/Marik. Will be using American names (mostly...), as that's the version I get!

Yugi's school does not exist in Dartmouth and proly N.S., though I'm quite sure another school of the same name exists somewhere else. Please excuse Joey's accent, it comes and goes in my writing...

Normally I'd answer reviews/thank reviewers here, but this time there's just so many and I can't figure out which ones were sent when that I'm totally confused and so no answerage this time around. Wagh. If you have any burning questions you put originally that need answering, feel free to ask again. Same with new questions.

Chapter Eight:

People are born many different ways. Some are born to avoid trouble, others are born to attract it, and others yet, are born to cause it. Marik prided himself on being one of those people. He had a knack for sniffing out potential cases for mischief, and sometimes it seemed as if the chance to cause grief fell right into his lap and he really just couldn't pass up such a tender offering. It may seem a little sadistic, but hey, he was a blood demon, it was natural.

So when he stumbled across the worried discussion of humans Joey Wheeler, Tristan Taylor and Tea Gardner, he really just couldn't resist.

The discussion started like so:

"Joey! Tristan!" Tea had yelled, sounding rather frantic. "Have you seen Yugi? He stayed with one of you overnight or something right? And just forgot to call home?"

"We were just gonna ask ya the same thing..." Joey had answered.

"What do you mean you were going to ask me?!" the brunette girl had shrieked. "He was supposed to be with you!"

"Yeah but... we kinda... lost him on the way to the dance..." the blonde-haired boy had told her, looking sheepish. "You sayin' he didn't come home?"

"Lost him? Lost him?!" The little female really had quite the set of lungs. "No he did not come home! Oh shit, oh shit, this can't be happening..."

And then dear Tea had hurried off and left the two teenage boys to their own devices.

"How could we have lost 'im?" Joey had said. He was definitely worried. "I mean, how could we not notice that he was gone? What if someone kidnapped him? What if some killer got him?!"

And that was his cue.

"What are you guys talking about?" Marik broke in.

"Huh? Oh, hey Marik," Tristan said, looking slightly apprehensive.

"You were talking about little Yugi, right?" the lavender-eyed youth questioned. "I wouldn't worry about him too much. Seemed peachy last time I saw him."

"Wuh? What do you mean the last time you saw him?" Joey demanded. "What do you know?!"

"Geez, calm down," Marik said, adopting an irked expression. "I'm just saying he looked like he was having a great time at the club last night."

The looks on the humans' faces were priceless.

"C-club?" Joey stuttered.

"Oh yes, he was right at home at the Devil's Den in that little Egyptian get-up," the tanned demon winked. "I never saw the little guy as an exhibitionist."

The two teenagers were speechless, gaping at him in shock.

"But I wouldn't worry," Marik continued. "I'm sure he's safe and sound with that guy of his and is just sleeping off a hangover or something."

Mischief managed. Exit stage right. The Egyptian smirked and turned to leave... only to smack straight into a mass of pale skin and paler hair. For a moment all he could do was stare at a being that seemed oh-so-familiar to him.

"Bakura?!"

The white-haired boy blinked, adopting a wary air. "That's my last name..."

Marik took the time to examine the teenager more closely. An ice demon, no doubt, but no, he wasn't Bakura. He had different eyes, softer, and he smelled different.

"Sorry," he said. "I mistook you for someone else."

And then he was off, not altogether unaware of the suspicious glare the iceling was sending after him.

After the blood demon had disappeared from sight, Ryou turned to Tristan and Joey. "Oh, you might want to know that Yugi is safe and sound. He had... a bit of trouble last night and he's sleeping it off at my apartment right now."

"Trouble?" Tristan asked.

"Yes, some bully problems I guess," the ice demon answered. "By the way, who was that just now?"

"That was Marik," Joey stated. "The school's resident creep. Now tell me more about these 'bully problems'..."

Yugi was beautiful, of that there was no doubt in Yami's mind. He had been watching over the sleeping human since Bakura and Ryou had left on their separate businesses, and he had come to the conclusion that nothing was truer. The boy was simply that, beautiful.

And not just in form, no, the violet-eyed teen had a light about him that could just draw you in... He was so... innocent somehow, and yet in other ways, he was not. It was strange, almost as though there was another being resting within the boy, untouched by the darkness of the world.

"You're as an angel should be," Yami whispered, leaning down and inhaling the intoxicating scent that was Yugi. His eyes darted over the human's face, taking in the way his bangs rested against round cheeks, the smudge of kohl against pale cheeks, the blissful curve of his rosy lips...

The darkling frowned slightly, eyes coming to rest on the boy's forehead. There was something there. Softly, he reached out a hand and brushed the golden bangs away, revealing a light red stain in the shape of a kiss. A finger lightly touched the spot and found it strangely warm.

"Did I give you that?" he mumbled quietly. "I didn't mean to mark you, child."

He shifted his position on the edge of the bed and felt something cold brush his arm. Glancing down he stared at the Puzzle, still hanging from about the boy's neck.

"Ah yes, you," he spoke. "Long time, no see, huh?"

The Puzzle seemed to pulse with amusement.

"How've you been, this little mortal treating you well?"

Light glinted off the pyramid's golden surface, defying physics in its movements.

"Kisses every morning? He's been treating you too well, you stupid piece of junk." A pulse of the Puzzle. "I am not jealous."

Yami wasn't sure how a puzzle could laugh, but laugh this one did. Glaring at the pyramid he waited for it to 'calm down'. He didn't know how it had happened, but after a millennia or so, the Puzzle had began to take on a personality of its own. But perhaps it only made sense, it was, after all a part of him, and he it.

The darkling continued his silent watch over the sleeping beauty, idly 'listening' to the Puzzle chatter. Idly that is until it brought up a certain occurrence.

"...What do you mean he was attacked?" Yami hissed, turning his full attention to the gold object that hung from Yugi's neck. "Somebody hit him? I don't care if you scared them off through him and healed it. They still hit him."

And suddenly, he was pissed. Enraged almost to the point he had been the night he had destroyed Yugi's father. That anyone would touch this boy, his boy, was unthinkable and unforgivable.

"I may not have meant to mark you, child," the darkling snarled, in a fit of possession. "But I did, and nobody hurts what is mine. If I ever find out who hit you, I'll fucking kill them."

He bent over and whispered into Yugi's ear: "Do you hear that, boy? If anyone touches you without your permission, they'll wish they'd never been pushed screaming into this world."

He found himself staring at those lovely rosy lips once again, and he drew back as if burnt. Closing his eyes, Yami sighed. "Even if that person is me."

The room was white. Yugi felt somehow that it wasn't supposed to be that way, that the walls were supposed to be covered with brightly coloured wallpaper with happy prints, but instead they were just white. Well actually, they weren't just white, there was the pictures, too. In fact, now that he looked properly the pictures almost completely obscured the walls, covering everything. The room was still white.

As he watched a woman in a nurse's uniform came in took one of the pictures down off the wall and burned it. The boy glared at her and set to work drawing another picture.

The boy looked up at Yugi with wide violet eyes. "I wish they'd stop burning my pictures."

He sat down by the boy and looked at his picture. It was a man with wings killing another man. Yugi smiled, "That's a pretty picture."

The woman came in again and burned another picture. The boy scowled, and stuck his newest picture to the wall.

"Why don't you just tell them to stop?" asked Yugi.

"I don't talk to them," the boy answered. "If I talked enough to make them stop burning, they'd just make me tell them more, and they don't want to hear what I have to say, so why bother?"

Yugi nodded sagely. It made perfect sense.

"Well," he spoke. "At least once they burn all the pictures, you won't have anything to tell them, and then you can speak again."

The boy looked sad. "I know, but I really don't want to lose all of my pictures, you know? Especially of Him."

The boy had pointed to a particularly large picture. It took up the entire wall, though Yugi was sure that there had only been many small pictures there before... Oh well, it didn't matter. The picture was the winged man with his glowing red eyes and leather clothing. It was a very beautiful picture.

"It would be a shame to forget Him," Yugi agreed.

For a while they sat there, staring at Him, while behind them the people burned more pictures.

"Perhaps..." the boy spoke. "Perhaps I don't have to let them all burn. Perhaps I could hide them."

"Perhaps," Yugi answered. "But where would you hide them?"

"In a box of course." And with that the boy removed the pyramid that was hanging around his neck and opened it up. All the pictures turned into origami cranes and flew into the pyramid and the boy shut it again. He offered it to Yugi.

"No thanks," Yugi said, patting his own pyramid necklace. "I've already got one."

"Oh." The boy put the pyramid in a box and addressed it to Yugi Mutou, October 29th, 2003. A little violet-eyed angel flew in the window and carried the pyramid off. The boy waved and yelled "Thankyou!"

"Yugi!" Someone shouted.

Yugi, both child and teenager, turned and yelled back, "WHAT?!"

Yami stared down at him, one eyebrow raised. "I didn't say anything."

"Huh?" Yugi blinked sleepily up into his companion's crimson eyes.

"You yelled 'what'," the darkling said. "I hadn't said anything."

"Oh..." the small teenager shook his head to clear it. "Sorry, I was having a dream. A really weird dream..."

"Ah." Yami got up from his seat at the edge of the bed and walked around.

Wait a second, Yugi thought, he had just woken up and Yami was here, and... and this wasn't his bed. Or his room. He bolted upright. "What the h- Where am I?!"

A second thought ran through his head, when he saw what was obviously daylight pouring in the window. "Holy shit! I'm going to be late for school!"

Followed by a third: "MY PARENTS ARE GOING TO KILL ME!"

Yami chuckled. "Calm down. Ryou's at school making excuses for your absence. You don't even have to go at all today if you don't want to."

"Oh," said Yugi, calming slightly. "But... you know Ryou?"

"Of course," the darkling stated. "I'm staying with him and his mate, Bakura, in this apartment."

"...don't tell me Ryou is a demon."

"He most certainly is. How many people do you see that look his age and have white hair?"

The violet-eyed teen shook his head. "Next you'll be telling me random classmates like Marik are demons... Anyway, what am I doing here?"

"You fell asleep while we were flying," Yami told him. "I have no idea where you live."

"Couldn't you have asked Ryou?"

The darkling opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. He stared blankly at Yugi for a second. "He was... sleeping?"

The human teen smiled in response and shook his braided head. The smile soon faded replaced with a troubled look. "I really don't know what I'm going to do... I'm already on thin ice with my parents right now... and with this?"

Yami watched as the boy's head drooped and he covered his face with his hands, an ache developing in his chest at the sight of the boy's unhappiness. He had to do something about that.

"Hey," he said, slipping a hand under Yugi's chin and tilting it up. "What say you and I go out for a bit?"

The violet-eyed human looked torn. "But school... my parents...?"

"Lighten up, live a little. It's just one day." He could tell the boy was caving. "Do your really want to go home? Or to school?"

"...No."

The darkling held out his hand. "Then come with me. For one day just forget it all, and be with me."

The small, pale hand fit perfectly in his own.