Oh my gawd it is here. The final chapter! One small thing to say before we start: there is hate sex in this chapter and some blood. I don't think it's anything too bad, and it eventually becomes nice happy sex, but hey, if that's not your thing, I figured I'd give you all a heads up. If it is your thing, then yay! Also, there's probably a ton of mistakes in this. I did a quick look through to fix stuff up but nothing too serious, so there's bound to be parts where I'll be trying to say the word now and it will come out as not. When I type quickly I make A LOT of mistakes. Just give me a heads up if you spot them so I can go back and fix them!

Disclaimer: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh.

Malik was inches away from killing Ryou.

Shit had gone very, very wrong, and now Malik was fucking inches away from killing Ryou! Shit! He had to do something and fast, but he couldn't think of what because he was not prepared for this, had specifically not thought about this because he'd hoped it would never happen and certainly not like this if it did and of fuck—he was moving.

Marik dashed toward his brother without his knowledge. While his brain was on vacation trying to figure out how Marik could have possibly known, his body was exercising all of that training he'd gone through and putting it to good use. His reflexes were sound—when Bakura ran to his own brother, Malik moved out of the way, but Marik was there to catch him. He grabbed onto his brother and while he still didn't know what the fuck he was doing, he knew that he could not let his brother go it he wanted even the hope that this could all turn out well.

"Marik," Malik greeted cordially. He leaned over his shoulder to see him better. "I thought you might have been dead."

Such a simple sentence and it made his stomach roll. Everything was just so wrong. Malik was not supposed to be here. It gave him the chills every time he was around the other two twins because it meant he was that much closer to figuring everything out. He was not supposed to be here knowing perhaps even better than Marik did what was going on, and he was still holding the bloodied knife he'd used to almost decapitate Ryou and he was smiling. He didn't think that Marik knew what they were. Either that, or he was ignoring all logic that pointed to Marik knowing and not caring. Malik was expecting him to help. Malik was expecting him to be okay with this.

"Malik…" Marik said weakly.

"What the fuck did you do to my brother?" Bakura screeched from across the room. Marik's gaze immediately flew to him and Ryou. His pulse quickened and before anything he saw made sense to him, he feared that he'd been too late and Ryou was dead and there was no chance for him to fix this—

And then he saw that, though paralyzed, Ryou was okay, Ryou was alive. Ryou was being held up by Bakura, who was snarling and more angry then any wild animal Marik had ever seen. And again he felt a pang, because Bakura was just so damn protective of his brother. He pushed those thoughts out of his mind because there was no time for them. What he needed to do now was to concentrate on the task at hand.

"Well I was about to slice him up a bit more before you came it," Malik responded off-handedly. Bakura growled murderously.

"I'll kill you," he said. Malik laughed.

"Do it then," he taunted. "If you feel comfortable enough leaving your precious brother there unattended to." Bakura did feel comfortable with this, or too murderous to care. He turned, purposely showing his back to Malik as he situated Ryou in the corner of the room furthest from the hunters and closest to the couch, keeping him somewhat blocked from view. Marik did not know whether this action was spawned from trust in Marik to keep him safe, or some blind confidence, but Malik smiled at it. By the time Bakura turned back around, the muscles in his arms were tensing dangerously. Marik broke out of his stupor and acted.

"Bakura, stand down!" he demanded. Two sets of eyes flashed to him, one furious and the other just curious.

"He nearly killed my brother," Bakura growled.

"I know, but get the fuck back! No one is killing anyone here! Malik, that goes for you too! Calm down!" he yelled. That caught Malik's attention enough to bring it away from Bakura. Now the humor was gone from his face, and he regarded Marik with an indifference that was far from comfortable.

"What do you mean?" he questioned.

"What I mean, Malik," Marik said, hoping to god his discomfort didn't show in his tone, "is exactly what I said. I'm not letting you kill anyone here."

"You know what they are?" Malik asked.

"Yes." His brother exploded.

"Then how are you saying such a thing?" Malik demanded. "How are you protecting them when you know what kind of filth they are? They nearly killed you, didn't they?"

"They never did anything to me, Malik!" Marik roared. His twin's eyes narrowed to tiny, slitted diamonds.

"How long have you known?" he asked.

"Since that night the trap went off in our yard," Marik answered truthfully.

"And you've let them live all this time?"

"Yes. They were my friends, Malik. They are my friends. In the entire time I've known them, they haven't once harmed me, or anyone else. They aren't dangerous. They're just trying to live. I'm going to make sure that they're able to, no matter what."

"No matter what…" Malik repeated. For a second he looked broken. Like the Malik who had woken up in that cave eight years ago, covered in blood, back flayed open and irredeemably changed in some manner. Then that Malik was gone, disappeared, and Marik knew probably before his brother did what was going to happen because it already had before.

Malik lunged at him with his hands outstretched, knife he'd been clenching clattering inaudibly to the floor, eyes crazed and set on the person he wanted to kill. Marik dodged the attack before it could even get close. His senses were alive and firing, feeding him a steady stream of information. This was how he hunted, by always knowing where his opponent was and predicting their moves. In hand-to-hand combat, all vampires fought the same. All had the same animalistic instinct and drive, and any fighting techniques were always, always built up from that foundation. If you fought them long enough, they became easy to read. If you fought them beside a partner long enough, the partner also became easy to read. Marik did not know his brother in the same way Bakura and Ryou knew each other, but he knew how to read him and how to fight him and beat him.

"Where is Marik?" Malik screamed. "What did you do to him? What did you do?"

Marik did not pay any attention to this. Malik was more than half-crazed and his rantings made no sense. There were meaningless distractions he could not afford to focus on. If he did, he would lose his life.

"Where is my brother?" Malik screamed. His face was twisted and fixed between some haunting mask of a grin and a bewildered snarl. He fought not without any technique or reason, abandoning all logic, training, crafts and guile he'd been taught throughout his life. In his madness he became a cornered animal even less aware than the ones he hunted. He swung and kicked and punched and bit and tore at random. It only made him easier to dodge, more see-through and apparent to Marik. He was not so surprised to see the tears he hadn't seen come from his brother since he'd been little.

"Where are you? What happened?"

Marik struck out for the first time and hit and solid wall of flesh. The blow glanced off Malik, the other barely cognizant of the effect, though it stole the wind from his lungs. Malik roared and charged again, undeterred by the attack. Marik dodged and hit, dodged and hit. It was pitiable how easy this all was. He knew well in advance how Malik would move and when he would present an opening. He knew when to block and when to press forward. It was like battling a child.

"Where?"

The word was desperate and pathetic. It wasn't getter better. He decided to end it.

Marik let his brother get up close to him. When he was within range he punched him hard, sending Malik sprawling back several paces. Malik's eyes widened in something close to hurt, but narrowed again in familiar murderous rage. He attacked again and Marik attacked back. When he was not blocking the hits aimed his way he was throwing his own. He punched Malik back far, cornered him against the same wall he'd held Ryou at. When Malik swung wildly, aiming for his face, Marik dodged and scooped the forgotten knife up from the floor. He wiped its bloodied edge on his jeans. When Malik took another hit at him, he slashed with the knife and deftly opened the length of his brother's left arm. He let the knife drop unceremoniously once more. Malik stared and he stared back.

This is me. I haven't gone anywhere. I haven't been hidden from you. I've changed—but not much. I'm still you. I am still your brother. This is me. And I will not let you kill these two.

Malik moved from the wall. His eyes listed. He looked down at his bloodied arm and clenched the wound. Blood spilled out from the crevices beneath the clutch of his fingers. He took off the stupid cape he liked to wear and ripped a strip of fabric from it to fasten into a tourniquet. Then, just as suddenly as everything had began, he turned and walked from the house. Marik did not stop him. Doing so might have been the correct action to take in this situation, but all he did was watch him go.

When Marik was sure he' left, he allowed himself to go back to normal. As much of the tension as was possible for him to lose in this situation melted away and his keen instincts dropped. He felt tired again, so tired already and he knew this was still far from over.

"What the hell was that?" Bakura roared from the other side of the room. He was supporting Ryou again, but he looked as keyed up as Marik felt. It honestly came as a bit of a surprise to him that Bakura had not joined in the fight. A surprise but a relief; if he had, Marik doubted he would have gotten Malik to stop.

"That," Marik said, turning to face him fully, "was me choosing you over everything else. That was me as good as abandoning the only person like me in the world. Like what you saw? Bet it made you feel all tingly and happy inside, seeing proof of how thoroughly you own me." What did surprise him was the amount of venom he was able to muster up even after all that.

"Fuck no I'm not happy! Look what that fucking psychopath did to Ryou!" Marik's eyes flashed.

"Bakura, shut the hell up," he warned. "Ryou is fine. There wasn't even a lot on the blade. He'll probably be up and walking again within a few hours." Before Bakura could say anything, he continued on growing angrier at the vampire the more he spoke. "I really don't have time to deal with your shit, because now that Malik knows about all this, it's only going to be a matter of time until the rest of my family does as well. I'm going to have a hard enough time trying to keep the two of you alive without hearing about how fucked up this all is. I am more than aware of it."

"Well if your brother—!"

"No!" Marik interrupted, fist clenching. "Marik thought he was coming to save me! He found out about this because Mai must have told him somehow, and he acted exactly as he should have. He didn't fucking know! He wasn't supposed to know, because then this would happen! But don't you dare go blaming this on him. We were the ones who weren't careful enough; we're the ones to blame here. He didn't do anything but what he was trained to. He-he's just confused and-and—"

"And lonely," Ryou spoke up, making both sets of eyes look at him. The paralyzed boy elaborated no further. Bakura gawked at him openly, but Marik nodded. He understood. Maybe it had taken that fight and maybe he still didn't get it as clearly as Ryou did, but he understood. Malik was alone and scared like he'd been when he was younger, wondering why his big brother wasn't saving him from that bad man who was trying to cut him up. That had messed Malik up something fierce. It had messed Marik up as well, but the fact that Malik had appeared to deal with it better should have been as big a clue as any. Malik had screamed to know where he was because he didn't like this new Marik, this Marik who care for people other than him. He was lonely.

After the sudden revelation, Marik didn't know what else to say. His anger at Bakura had gone as suddenly as it had come, and now he was left wondering what to do. Malik wasn't wrong. He… he could have handled the information better, but he wasn't wrong in his actions. But now… he would be going to tell Isis and Rishid. And once they knew, something would have to give. The tentative calm he was experiencing right now would be gone. His siblings would react in the same way Malik had. They would attack the moment they heard, and Malik would lead them.

"I have to go," Marik murmured. "Malik will tell Isis and Rishid. They'll be coming here. They'll want to kill you. I have to go and talk to them, do something about all of this."

"Do what?" Bakura asked. He was frowning. His surprise from Ryou's input in the conversation was gone, and al that was left now was the same steely conviction from before. "If they're as against us as you say they are, then nothing you can tell them is going to change their minds. They're apt to just lock you up and go after us with stakes and knives. I'd rather you be here with us if they come knocking."

What are you saying? Marik questioned slowly. "I'm hearing you wrong, aren't I? You cannot be saying that you're going to remain here. Malik can lead them here."

"I know that!" Bakura snapped, irritated. "But Ryou can't move. I'm not leaving him, so what do you suggest, that I drag him away? They'd find us and kill us in a second if we tried something so ill thought! We won't have a chance at escape until Ryou is able to move again."

"Do you actually hear what you're proposing here? The moment Malik says 'vampire' they'll come. And you want to stay here! You'll be slaughtered!" Marik cried.

"Now if you're here with us," Bakura said. Marik's outstretched hands fell to his sides.

"You mean to use me," he said.

"They wouldn't dare try anything too dangerous if they knew you were still in here with us." Bakura didn't say one thing about using him, but he didn't deny the accusation. It was the same thing the others had just done to him, and Marik realized he was quickly getting sick of this. He was not some toy or a useful bargaining chip to be employed as a means to an end. The mark on his hip seemed to burn and itch in disagreement. He tried his best to ignore the sensation.

"And what if I don't agree with your little strategy? No, fuck the whole 'what ifs', I don't agree with this. What's to keep me from leaving right now?" Marik questioned.

"I'll stop you if I need to, but I was hoping you'd see my way of thinking and we could prevent a fight. There's nothing we can do right now, not until Ryou can move again. If the two of us tried leaving right now, everyone would see us, and your siblings would know exactly where we were headed. Just think about it, Marik," Bakura said. Marik fumed. But fine, he wanted him to think about it, he would think about it.

First of all, it was a stupid idea. What Bakura was saying did make sense. Ryou would not move on his won until the Dead Man's Blood wore off, and if Bakura tried to drag him out of here, the neighbors would notice and be able to point out the direction they had gone to Marik's siblings later. There was a whole hell of dangers and uncertainties there, but it was still the best choice. If the vampires waited for the poison to run its course through Ryou's veins, they could perhaps have a chance as escaping with Isis, Rishid, and Malik following close behind, or it could not matter at all, because by the time the poison wore off, the Ishtars would already be here and escape would become impossible.

Running now was obviously the better choice, but Bakura was a stubborn, idiotic, brainless asshole and now Marik was forced to think of alternate ways of keeping him and his brother alive. His best was trying to talk to his siblings, but that was out of the picture now that he was apparently being held hostage here. Even if he wasn't there was of course no guarantee that talking to them would prevent anything. Marik had been completely serious in everything he'd said about them, and he knew it was a long shot that likely wouldn't work. But he felt like he still needed to try it. The only way he would be able to was if Bakura stayed here.

His siblings would come the moment Malik told them everything. If Bakura thought he would have enough time to wait on Ryou's regaining movement in his body and still be able to escape unseen, he was an idiot. If wouldn't happen. His siblings would arrive and the twins would be sitting ducks. But they wouldn't be attacked, and it wasn't just because Marik was in the house with them. Bakura and Ryou's house was in a populated area. There was no way his siblings could do anything and allow the neighbors to see. As long as they remained in this house, boxed in by the homes of others, they were safe. Surrounded, but safe. And the situation would allow Marik the chance to talk to his family.

"Fine," he relented. He didn't like it. It was still a foolish plan, and there was a damn lot of uncertainties. There was nothing that said Isis and Rishid would suddenly decide they didn't care about onlookers and break in to kill the vampires and anyway, and there was no way to keep Bakura and Ryou safe if the talk didn't work. But Marik didn't have a whole lot of options open to him at the moment.

"I'll stay here. We'll stay here. And when my family comes, we're going to continue to stay here. No going outside for either of the two of you. No trying to escape or get away or do anything other than keep your asses right in this house. I'll take care of everything. Got that?" Marik questioned.

"You sure that's a good idea?" Bakura asked. He didn't say the question in any particular way, but it undermined Marik's authority, however inadvertently that might have been. All the anger he'd been feeling since last night rounded itself into a tight, hot ball glowing in the pit of him and Marik felt the same untamable rage he'd felt when he'd slaughtered Mai. He rounded on Bakura.

"No, I'm not fucking sure! I haven't had the time or ability to be sure of anything since last night! I could be condemning the two of you to your deaths right now and I wouldn't know it! But then there's not really anything else left for me to do any longer, is there? We're all at the ends of our ropes, so why don't you just shut the fuck up and attend to your brother and leave me to do whatever the fuck dirty work needs to be done. I've kept the two of you alive this far. So just get the hell away from me now and let me handle this," Marik hissed. Bakura appeared to have gained some common sense. He scowled and frowned but did not open his mouth. Marik stomped off to the small couch and sat with his head in his hands.

After some measure of time he heard the hushed voices of Bakura and Ryou. Then someone—obviously Bakura—was up and moving around the small house, while Ryou sucked in breaths of air he didn't need next to him. Bakura returned eventually and the hushed whispers began again. Marik did not try to decipher them. He didn't care. He was finding that he was beginning not to care about a lot of things. At some point the whispers died down, though he did not know if that result came from Bakura and Ryou actually ceasing their talking, or because he himself became unaware of it. He drifted while sitting there and tried not to think about anything. Everything that would happen now would happen regardless of anymore thought on his part. Things were far past the point where any of this could have been prevented. The only thing he could do now was hope things didn't end as bloodily as he thought they would.

"Hey."

Marik stirred but did not move from his seated position. He realized he was slowly becoming aware of things again, like the ache in his limbs from being held steady for so long.

"Hey. Get up."

"Your siblings are here, you idiot."

Marik ignored the insult and focused on the rest of the sentence. He opened his eyes and was greeted with darkness. Night had fallen outside. When he stood, his entire body felt stiff.

"Turn the lights on," he commented irritably. "We want them to know you're in here." Bakura did so with a scowl. Marik meanwhile leaned over the couch and tried his hardest to peer out the window without bumping into Ryou. As Bakura had said, his family was here. They all three sat in the car on the other side of the street from the house. Marik couldn't make them out well, but doubtlessly they had already caught sign of him. When he moved back to the couch, he eyes caught sight of his motorcycle lying in the driveway. It had toppled over, but even the sight of it like that did not make him feel anything in particular right then. It did seem strange to him that his brother had not taken it, but he would be the first to admit that Malik had not been in the right state of mind when he'd left.

"Okay," he said, more to himself than the others in the room. "I'm going to call my sister. I want you two to remain silent. If we're going to do this, this will be the only chance we get."

He did not wait for a response. He walked into the kitchen, thought about turning a light on, then decided no, he liked it this way. He took his phone out from his pocket and stared at it. His hands were shaking, just a bit, but shaking all the same. He almost laughed at how much he was hesitating over one stupid phone call, but the sound caught in his throat. He dialed his sister's number and placed the phone up to his ear.

"Marik. Get out of that house right this instant."

"Isis, I—"

"No. Get out of the house. Now."

For a while, Mrik floundered. The steely tone of his sister's voice was something he'd heard before, but it was unfamiliar and foreign all the same. This was the voice he usually heard on particularly difficult hunts, or back in the past when everything bad in Egypt had come to a point. This tone meant there was no room for arguments or opinions of any kind, and Marik felt his hopes sink before they'd really had a chance to rise.

"Isis, I just need you to listen—"

"No Marik, you listen. When your brother told me what happened today, I could not believe a word of what he was saying. No matter how it all sounded, I couldn't believe that you could be so stupid." Marik winced; that word fell like a blow. "I was all right with you not wanting to hunt anymore. I thought it was a little strange that you suddenly had a problem with it, but I could understand. It's not always easy to do. But this is beyond my understanding. If everything Malik had said is correct, you not only saved this vampire's life and covered for him and his brother, but you invited him into our house, you befriended him, you slept wit him, and now you're trying to bargain with me to let the both of them go? I will not allow this, Marik. Not get out of that house so we can end this problem once and for all."

"No, Marik heard himself say. His voice was barely above a whisper.

"What?"

"I said no," he repeated. "Malik may have told you all that, but he didn't tell you what I told him. They're not bad, Isis. I'm not saying that all vampires are good, but these ones are. They don't drink human blood and they've never once hurt me. They're my friends. And Bakura is… something more than that. I'm not going to let you or Rishid or Malik or anyone else kill them. You're not taking this away from me. So I'm not getting out of the house. Either you'll just have to let this all go and stop it, or kill me too."

"You're delusional," Isis said. Her tone was crisp, cool, and wholly dismissive. "They must have put you under a trance of some kind. It would explain why you've been acting this way."

"No they haven't!" Marik exploded. He was gripping the phone tight in his hand by now. "I know exactly what I'm saying right now! Why can't any of you get it through your heads that I'm serious first of all, and that I know what I'm doing? I don't care how hard this is for you all to wrap your minds around. It hasn't been easy for me either! But this is what I've chosen to do, and you'd best damn well get used to it! I don't be changing my mind anytime soon and I'm not going to just blindly follow along with whatever the lot of you has to say. I'm not leaving!"

"You're going to regret saying that," Isis said softly.

"No, I won't. Now are you going to listen to me for once and stop this?"

"We are hunters, Marik. It is our job to kill vampires and that is what we are going to do. Your feelings on the issue do not matter," Isis said.

"Fine."

Isis hung up without saying anything further, and Marik stared at the phone, lost. Nothing he hadn't already been expecting had transpired, but this still felt like a loss. As long as they remained inside the house they were still safe and would have the opportunity for further phone calls. Nothing much of the situation had changed, but Marik still felt beaten down even more than before. He finally hung up the phone and walked back into the living room.

Bakura and Ryou were both on the couch waiting for him, and from the looks on their faces, Marik knew they had overheard his conversation.

"Is there anything else we can do?" Ryou was the first to speak.

"You have any ideas?" Marik snapped.

"What if we tried talking to them? Actually going out there and talking to them, trying to explain ourselves?" Ryou asked. Marik shook his head.

"I already told you we're not doing that, Ryou!" Bakura butted in, interrupting Marik from saying the very same thing. Ryou frowned. It was about the only movement he was able to make. Though Bakura had situated him quite nicely, he still looked considerably uncomfortable.

"I think it's worth a shot! We might succeed! I know that if we had a chance to talk to them, we would be able to make them see. Even if we can't convince your brother and sister, I'm sure we could convince Malik to help us," Ryou argued.

"Malik just nearly killed you! What you're saying doesn't even made sense! He's insane! He'd kill you if you even got close!" Bakura yelled.

"Bakura, be quiet," Ryou said. Both Marik and Bakura were so surprised by the command coming from the timid boy that both did just that and looked on silently. "You understand less of Malik then both Marik and I. I don't want to hear you saying such things against him anymore. I know what he did and I know why he did it. He'd confused, just like Marik said. And he's lonely. I believe that if we just talked to him we could convince him to join us, if not your siblings as well. We just need to try talking to them."

Marik recovered his ability to speak first. Despite the conversation he'd had with his sister still lingering at the front of his mind, Marik found himself feeling a faint sort of amusement at how easily Ryou had shut his brother up. "Ryou, I agree with what you said there, but you can't leave. My siblings would grab you and take you somewhere to get rid of you before you had a chance to say a word to them. It's a nice idea, but it just won't work. The only way we can hope to talk to them is if I do it," he said.

"I think you're wrong," Ryou said. "I don't think they would do that. I've only met your siblings a few times, but I don't think they would be so heartless about this, knowing what they do now."

"Well none of it matters because we're not leaving this house. That's final, Ryou," Bakura said, reentering the conversation. Marik was loathe to agree with the older twin, but in this instance he had to. There was no other option here. The vampires could not go outside.

"He's right, Ryou. You can't go out there. Even if you did have a change at changing their minds. It's too dangerous," Marik said. Ryou frowned but did not chase the matter. Marik was sure he hadn't given up on the idea, but as long as it wasn't pursued any further he didn't care whether or not he convinced Ryou. He still had other things to worry about, and if that first conversation with his sister was any indication of how the rest would go, then it was not going to be easy convincing his siblings to let the vampires live. He would have to put all of his resources into that.

"Marik," Bakura said. Marik lifted his head to acknowledge the other's presence but did nothing more.

"I thought maybe we could have a talk," Bakura continued, either uncaring or unnoticing of Marik's less than warm behavior. Marik really did not want to talk with anyone, especially not if that person was Bakura. He was fighting to save the vampire but he was still angry with him, and he doubted any amount of talking about solve that. But he did not want to act childish about this entire thing, so when Bakura walked away from Ryou into the kitchen, Marik followed.

"So what are we doing? What's the plan?" Bakura asked.

"You already know the plan. We stay here and wait this out. I'll keep talking to my siblings and trying to convince them that the two of you aren't about to go out for a night on the town and drain every human being in sight," Marik said.

"And when that doesn't work?" Bakura questioned dryly. "What do we do then?" Marik said nothing because he hadn't thought that far ahead. Well, he had, but… He knew how improbable it was that any of this would actually work. He was fairly certain Isis would rather be killed during a hunt than cede that any of this was okay. The same went for Rishid, and as for Malik, even with the insight he'd gained into his brother's warped mind earlier, he had no clue as to how his twin truly felt about this whole thing. The only other option there was available when all this failed was to fight, and both he and Bakura knew it.

"You know this is all going to end in a fight, right? And I'll try not to harm your sibling, but I'm getting both Ryou and I out of here alive. So if blood needs to be spilt, then I'm warning you now that I won't hold back," Bakura said. Again, this was something Marik already knew. He recalled his jealousy from earlier when he'd watched Ryou fuss over Bakura's wound, and how Bakura had flown to Ryou'd protection. He could even now see the bullet hole in Bakura's forehead, a bit smaller than it had been when it had first been put there. Ryou hadn't ever had the chance to cover it up.

"I guess the real question I'm posing here is what are you going to do? Whose side are you going to be on when the shit starts going down?" Bakura asked. Marik frowned.

"Don't ask stupid questions. We don't have time to be playing around here," he answered.

"Which is exactly why I'm asking," Bakura interjected. "It's in mine and Ryou's best interests to know which side of the field you'll be playing. Are you going to be with us, or are we going to have four enemies to contend ourselves with?"

"I'm not answering that," Marik said, growing angry now. "It's a stupid question."

"Is it?"

"Yeah, it fucking it!" Marik raged. "I'm not choosing sides. I'm not going to pick you over my family and I'm not going to pick them over you! And I'm not going to let you all destroy yourselves because you can't just fucking stop acting like assholes and get along!"

"You might say that now, but you'll have to chose eventually. You could come with Ryou and I. Once we get out of here in one piece, we can find a place where he can stay on his own for a while, and then it can just be you and I," Bakura said. His voice had lowered slightly, taken on a bit of a seductive tone and he was even closer than Marik could remember him having been before. He might have been flattered by the offer if he wasn't so offended by it instead.

He backed away angrily and glared. "I'm not going anywhere with you, Bakura! I'm not just going to abandon my siblings! There's not going to be a fight. I'm going to figure this all out. I'm going to fix this."

"If that's what you say…"

"Yeah, that's what I say! Now just… go to fucking sleep or something! Stay out of my face!" He turned and headed directly out of the kitchen. He caught sight of Bakura shrugging as he went, but his eyes glowed an angry red.

For the rest of the night, Marik did not talk to anyone. Even Bakura and Ryou did not talk anymore. He and Ryou remained sitting silently on the small couch while Bakura agitatedly paced the length of the living room floor, pausing every ten minutes or so to peer out the window. At around two in the morning, Marik was quite sure that he'd been right in thinking his siblings would not attack with so many potential onlookers, and so he suggested they go to bed. Bakura made a scoffing noise at the suggestion that Marik ignored, and Ryou offered the use of his bed if Marik was tired, on the grounds that, still being unable to move, he couldn't enjoy it anyways. Marik accepted without much of a fight.

He did not sleep that night. Ryou's bed was comfortable enough and he felt so very tired, but every time he closed his eyes he opened them up again a few minutes later. On occasion he could hear Bakura and Ryou arguing about something in the living room, but he did not go out there to join them. They would be keeping watch on his siblings, and his siblings would be keeping watch on them. At five o'clock in the morning, it all seemed hilariously stupid in a queasy sort of way.

In the morning it was quite obvious to the vampires that he hadn't slept, but then it was quite obvious to him that they hadn't either. They didn't look as bad as Marik, who hadn't slept in forty-eight hours now, but the signs of prolonged stress were still there. He observed this all as he walked out of Ryou's room, and then went into the kitchen to make himself a meal out of whatever foods Ryou kept in there for appearance's sake. He managed to chew a few bites before he realized he wasn't hungry.

Later on in the day Ryou slowly regained his ability to move. Marik watched this with interest. When they used Dead Man's Blood, the Ishtars used a high concentration of the stuff to guard the house with, and a low concentration when they went hunting. The thought process behind that was if a vampire were to attack them when they were away from the house, there would be enough poison in its blood to guarantee it was still there when they got back. If they used it while hunting, it didn't matter as much for how long the vampire was immobile. In the end it would be dead. Marik had never seen one recover from the poison aside from Bakura, and he had a good feeling that Bakura's case had not been normal. Ryou's recovery was slow and looked a bit painful.

With Ryou's being able to move now he again brought up the idea of going out there and trying to talk to them. Bakura and Marik rejected it flat out. But Marik did call his sister for a second time and got into a conversation with her so similar to the one he and Bakura had had in the kitchen that he felt like giving up. No one thought he could do this. No one thought that he would be able to keep from picking sides. Maybe they were all right.

Bakura only got antsier as the day wore on. He continued to look out the windows and the irritance on his face was becoming more and more apparent. Marik told him that his family wouldn't attack, but the other didn't seem to listen. When night fell again, Marik was sick of watching him flit about from one spot of the house to another, so he headed back into Ryou's room and bed, which the younger twin had again insisted he take. Marik went to bed and this time it took him only an hour to fall asleep. When he woke up it was still dark and it was because he'd heard a noise he couldn't identify.

What really got him on red alert was the silence. It had been silent in the house many times before when Bakura and Ryou hadn't been talking, but this silence felt much more oppressive and lacking life. It was wrong and it was what got him out of the bed and moving to see that the living room was empty of two vampires.

"Shit." He wasn't exactly sure what had happened or how it had happened, but he was quite sure that his siblings had somehow gotten a hold of Bakura and Ryou. Marik grabbed for his phone and dialed his sister's number. He was unsurprised that she did not answer.

"Shit!" he swore again. He threw his shoes on and headed out the door. The car was no longer there, as he'd thought. "Why couldn't you just fucking listen to me when I said don't leave the house?" Because now he didn't know where they were. Now they could already be dead and he wouldn't know until he found their bodies or one of his siblings called him with the news.

His bike was still lying in the driveway. That was right, Malik hadn't taken it with him. A small bit of luck that Marik hoped would actually matter in the long run. He didn't have a helmet, but right now that was the least of his worries. He hopped on the bike without it and headed straight for his house.

He did not see the car in the driveway when he got there, but that meant nothing. He stopped long enough to see that the lights were off in the house and then was moving again. He had not thought that they would be in the house and so it did not disappoint him to find that they were not. Malik and Rishid wouldn't have cared, but Isis would never have knowingly allowed a vampire into their home. Instead he headed to the shed in the back where they stored their equipment. The last time he had been back there, Bakura had as well. Now he expected to again find Bakura, but only his body, the life having been drained out of him. Maybe he would be in pieces, or maybe it would just be a simple decapitation or a stake to the heart, or it could have happened by fire. Worst yet was the thought that maybe he was not dead but merely wishing for it. When Marik reached for the door to the shed he expected to see signs of torture and blood, but instead found nothing at all. Bakura was not here.

He stood there, stumped. Bakura was not here. There were no signs that his family had been, either. They had taken him somewhere else, and Marik did not have the slightest clue as to where that might be. Think, Marik! But he couldn't. When he tried, all be was able to summon was that panicky feeling he'd felt when Mai had shot Bakura and he'd been so afraid that somehow, even though he knew it didn't work that way, that Bakura would be dead, that he—

And suddenly he was sure that Bakura was at the warehouse. He didn't know why he was so sure. It he stopped to think about it, there was really no reason at all why he couldn't be somewhere else. But as Marik hopped onto his motorcycle, he knew that was where he was going. It was the vampires at the warehouse who had messed everything up and it made sense that, one way or another, everything would be solved there.

Marik drove as fast as he possibly could to get there. He broke quite a few speeding laws along the way, but managed to not get into any trouble for it. Another small token of luck. Maybe things were getting better.

When he arrived at the warehouse he felt a shiver of apprehension that as good as solidified his idea that Bakura would be here. The doors to the warehouse were closed, but the lock on it was still broken from when Mai had opened it. When he threw them open, the smell of old blood washed over him strongly. He would not be going to jail for murder after all. Evidently no one had found the bodies.

He caught sight of Bakura and Ryou fighting against Isis and Malik respectively. But before he had a chance to really see what was going on or even puzzle out how this had happened, Rishid was in front of him, trying to grab him. Marik reacted quickly and sidestepped away.

"Marik," Rishid greeted as he straightened his body and stood at his full height.

"Rishid. It's been a while," Marik responded his voice just as carefully guarded as his brother's. The two sized each other up and almost simultaneously let their muscles relax and the tension in them dissipate.

"It wouldn't have been so long had you obeyed your sister," Rishid said. Marik scoffed.

"It wouldn't have been so long if the three of you just listened to me and stopped all this," he shot back. Some emotion flitted past Rishid's face, but Marik would not decipher it. He cared for his brother dearly, but at times the man was even harder to read than Malik.

"Marik, I think this has gone on long enough. It's time for you to stop this nonsense and come back to us." Marik bristled. He made to make a comment, then was distracted by the fight going on between Isis and Bakura. Isis had a long and slender knife and was attacking Bakura with all she had. The vampire's eyes were a glowing red, and his hair flew in every direction as he parried her attacks with his claws, snarling. They looked like they were night fighting at all, but dancing some intricate movement full of giving and takes. Two colors clashing together violently, magnificently. Rishid caught his eye and broke him from his string of thought, made him remember that he should be out there coming up with a way to stop all this.

"I'm not going to listen to you. Or Isis. You want to kill them and I won't let you," Marik said simply.

"Marik, stop this. Please. You don't understand how hard this is on your sister and brother. We all only want what's best for you," Rishid said, voice taking on a more familiar, pleading tone.

"Oh, so killing my friends is the way to do that?" Marik asked, mockingly, not allowing himself to get caught up in his near-constant anger just yet. His eyes drifted again and landed on Malik and Ryou this time. In comparison to Isis and Bakura's, their dance was slow and unimpressive. They held each other at arm's length and looked like they were putting on some kind of play or act. "And I don't want to hear how difficult this is for them. They're making this difficult for everybody."

"It doesn't have to be difficult at all," Rishid argued softly.

"No, it doesn't," Marik agreed. "Just let Bakura and Ryou live." Rishid shook his head slowly. He shifted, moved in such a way that it looked like he was preparing for a fight. Marik unconsciously mirrored his movements.

"I'm sorry, but you know we cannot do that. They are vampires and we have to kill them. Even if they are your friends," Rishid said. He sounded almost apologetic.

"And like I said, I won't let you do that. Let me through, Rishid." Rishid shook his head slowly. Marik took a few steps back and widened his stance as he prepared to fight his brother. He found himself wishing that he'd thought to bring something with him when he'd stopped by his house. Not anything dangerous, but something that would make him feel like his footing was more even here. When his father had died, Rishid had taken over his training. Even when the old man had been alive, Rishid had often taught him and Malik when their dad couldn't be bothered. Something as simple as just getting past him would not be an easy task.

But it was one Marik did not have to worry about. Bakura had gained the upper hand in his fight with his sister and had knocked her to the ground. He was advancing now, growling like some kind of animal. Before Marik could react to this in any certain way, Rishid already had. He was sprinting toward the two and crashed into Bakura hard, sending them both to the ground and giving Isis enough time to stand up. And then Marik's attention was stolen once again from the fight by his twin. Malik stood in front of him looking grim and stone-faced.

He did not react to this new development right away. It was hard enough deciding what to do when it came to Rishid and Isis, but the last time he'd been Malik, his brother had tried to kill him. Marik did not know if there was a possibility of that happening again. Unlike that last time, Malik was not giving anything away here.

Marik opened his mouth to say something and Malik attacked him with a swift uppercut. Marik only just managed to force his body into a stumbling dodge to miss it. He openly shared his surprise with his brother, who did not react in any outward way.

"I am going to ask you several questions. And you are going to answer them all honestly, every single one," Malik said.

"What are you talking about? That doesn't—" Malik attacked him again. He crouched and swept his legs out, meaning to take Marik's own out from underneath him. Marik reacted in time to dodge again, but just barely. When he stood up, he kept a weary eye on his brother, waiting for whatever would come next.

"Who are you?" Malik asked. His tone was sharp, yet also somehow bored.

"You know what I—" Marik started. Then Malik was on him again, bringing the fight up close. He threw punches and elbows that Marik could only try his best to block. Every time he tried to put some space between himself and his twin, Malik would close it quickly and force them up close again. Marik grit his teeth and tried his best to bear it. This was a much clearer and more focused Malik than the one before, with his haphazard strikes and crazed rants, and one much harder to subdue. Though he still had no idea what Malik wanted from him, only that he had told him to speak honestly and answer who he was.

"I am Marik Ishtar," he managed to say through the barrage of attacks. "Son of Muta and Cecilia Ishtar. Twin to Malik Ishtar and brother of Rishid and Isis Ishtar. I was one the leader of the Ghouls. I helped to kill a man. I used to be a hunter, but now I'm just Marik."

Malik seemed satisfied by the answer, if only known by the lessoning intensity of his hits. He did not let up on them in any way though. He stopped only to ask his second question, and then continued on.

"Why did you stop hunting?"

Marik frowned but would answer it anyway. He did not understand the meaning of this or what Malik was looking from it, but if this was the only way to get away, then he would take it, even if he would rather not answer. He focused all of his strength in his arms and upper body and knocked Malik away. He scanned the length of the warehouse he was able to see and caught sight of Rishid and Bakura going at it now. Both were bleeding and their body language spoke of a growing fatigue, but they were fighting in earnest and without any decrease in intensity. He looked for Isis and Ryou but did not see them anywhere. This worried him. He needed to finish this up here quickly. He turned his attention back to Malik, who was on his feet and waiting for his answer.

"I stopped hunting because of Bakura. I found him and learned what he was and that he wasn't dangerous to me. He and Ryou drink the blood of animals. When I tried to hunt, all I was able to think about was them. I knew that these vampires killed and drained humans and needed to be put down. I had her trapped, and I tried to do it, but I couldn't." Malik digested the information. Marik wished he would stop looking so empty. He knew how pathetic it was for him to have to admit to something like that as being truth. He wanted Malik to sneer and tease him and act like normal. He wanted to continue on and tell him more, try to convince him as Ryou had suggested, but he knew that would be a quick way to bring down his attacks again.

"Why did you take care of him?" Malik asked. He was still not attacking, but Marik could sense that beneath his calm, he was ready to act at a moment's word.

Marik did not answer this inquiry immediately. It was a simple question, but there was more to it than that. Malik himself did not give this away in any manner. His face was as slack and blank as ever, and his tone bland, but none of that held any weight. The question was too close to home. Why did you take care of him? Why didn't you tell us? Why did you hide him? Why did you befriend him? Why did you betray us? How? How could you do this? How how how? There was much more hidden in that question than just that.

"I don't know why I did it at first," Marik started out. He didn't need to remind himself to be honest, because there wasn't anything else he could be in this situation. "I was surprised to see him there and couldn't believe it. I'd started to become friends with him in class, you know, and so the first thing I did was take him to the shed out back because I knew he wouldn't be found there. I tried to kill him once. I… just wasn't able to." Here Marik trailed off for a second, then was forced to stop completely as Malik came to him once more. If possible, his brother's face was even more empty than before, but his attacks betrayed a fierce rage.

"I don't know why I wasn't able to do it," Marik continued in bursts. Malik had brought out his knife as some point, and now Marik was being forced to keep on his toes at all times to dodge it. It was impossible to do anything but try to get away now. He looked for an opening to disarm Malik, but his twin wasn't giving him any.

"I wanted to. I knew he was a vampire and he needed to die, but I think—fuck!" Malik had nicked him. The cut on his arm was shallow, but it was already bleeding profusely. "—but the familiarity of him prevented me from going through with it. He was—is—such an asshole, but I knew him. I couldn't kill him, even though I knew that I should. And then I realized—that I didn't want him dead. So I made sure—you guys—didn't find him, and when he could—more again, I never told anyone what happened."

"Do you care about us?" Malik asked. He didn't sound out of breath at all, though he had been going for so long now. He was steady and strong compared to Marik's own gasp-filled words.

"Of course I do!" Marik yelled. He kicked his brother away from him and took a second to look around at everything else, but Malik was again in front of him, never faltering or slowing in his movements.

"Do you love us?" he asked.

"Yes! You guys are my family, Malik, of course I love you all! I just don't want—" Malik had kneed him sharply in the gut and knocked the wind from him. He stumbled backwards a few steps, hands instinctively going to cover the area that had taken the blow. Malik stood coldly above him.

"Do you love him?"

The last question hit Marik as physically hard as a blow had. He remembered when Ryou had first told him of Bakura's affections and used the word love, how startled he had been.

"Malik, what are you—"

"This is not a conversation," Malik interrupted. "This is me asking you a question, and you answering. Now answer, and answer honestly."

It was hard digging through the anger he felt at Bakura for everything that had happened recently. It was hard seeing past his jealousy. He noticed when he looked around him that now that Malik was no longer attacking, he had a chance to see everyone. It did not surprise him to find that Bakura and Ryou were fighting Isis and Rishid together. All parties were hurt and snarling and he had to find a way to end this soon before they all killed themselves.

"Yeah, I think I do," Marik answered. "I hate him too and he pisses me off to no end, but I think I do."

"I didn't ask if you 'thought' you did. Do you?" Malik asked.

"Yes, I do," Marik answered. He was sure of himself. "I love Bakura."

Malik walked up to him slowly. His hands hung listlessly at his sides. Marik straightened his posture. He couldn't sense anything now. Even the smallest traces of emotion had been wiped from Malik's face. Marik stood in front of him, face to face. Then all of the lethargy was gone from his brother's form, and before he could comprehend what had happened, Malik's blade had been thrust up the hilt in his belly.

Malik withdrew the knife and the blood that had been staunched by the blade came pouring out. He tried to think through the pain. Blood was leaving him quickly, much too quickly for him to be able to recover from it if it wasn't stopped. He looked to Malik for help, but Malik was still standing there. His face was so strange, like all the emotions he never showed were all battling now for a space to reveal themselves and it was hurting him now. His mouth was turned upright in a scar-like grimace of pain, and a hand was pressed tightly to his head to still the war there. Marik fell to his knees in his own blood. He pressed weakly against the hole in his stomach and the flowing blood dyed his hand red. His vision was swimming and fading and he was thinking that he wasn't going to make it. Only he wasn't afraid, because he couldn't pay attention to anything long enough to be afraid. So he just died.

00000

Bakura smelled blood. A lot of it. He'd been smelling blood since he'd arrived. First the scent of the vampires who had died earlier and the woman who had tried to kill him, then his own and Ryou's and Marik's siblings and some of Marik's own. He was spared from one of his recent blood crazes coming over him not only because he had just recently fed, but because he had no time to lose control over himself. If he did that he would feed and then he would be vulnerable. He would not last long in that state, and the goal here was for him to stay alive. So when someone began losing copious amounts of blood and quickly, while he certainly reacted to the rich scent, he would not at first isolate it from all the other's in the air as Marik's. It was Marik's sister who noticed first.

She'd heard something and turned away from the battle long enough to look at it. Bakura had been prepared to attack her. Then the weapon fell from her hands and her face turned ashy and she began to run, screaming Marik's name. Bakura had turned and looked and felt his stomach drop to his feet. Then he was running too, for once not even thinking about Ryou and the opponent he had left for him to face. He made sure to reach Marik's side before his sister.

He knelt as fast as he could and scooped Marik up into his arms. The blonde's eyes were still open and his wound was still pumping out blood, but it became apparent to Bakura right away that he was dead. Bakura felt his own eyes sting and tingle and his sense of smell tell him, even now, how good Marik's blood was. He was unable to believe this. Then he was on his feet and Marik was on the ground and Isis had just arrived and pulled Marik into her lap in the same way he had, and now they both had his blood on them and Bakura was on his feet and marching straight up to Malik. His eyes had never burned so brightly.

"You killed him!" he roared at Malik. He wrapped a hand around the male's neck and started to squeeze slowly. Never before had he hated this person for having the same face as Marik as he did now. He had killed Marik. His own flesh and blood! Bakura was going to make him pay, he was going to squeeze the life out of him and murder him slowly, he was going to—

"Bakura!" Ryou shouted. "Stop!" Bakura turned on him.

"He killed Marik! He killed his own brother!" he yelled, furious. Ryou placed his hand on Bakura's arm.

"Let him go," Ryou said. And Bakura listened. He released Malik and the other teen sucked in gulp after greedy gulp of air. Bakura glared at him with disdain and fury and hoped it burned on the way down.

"Tell me why I shouldn't snap your neck for what you've done," he hissed.

"You can fix him," Malik rasped out, holding onto his neck. Bakura's eyes narrowed. "All you need to do is turn him and he'll be alive again."

"Are you crazy?" Bakura yelled. "It's not that simple! There are no guarantees that it would work, and if it did, he would be stuck like this!" Malik lurched up to him, hand still on his throat. His eyes were angry and desperate and sad all at once. He grabbed a hold of Bakura's shoulder for support and leaned in close to his ear.

"Turn him," he hissed. "He told me that he loved you. He wouldn't fucking care what he was, so just fucking get over your fear and do it. It's the only way to make this stop." And then Malik shoved him away, towards Marik's body.

His sister was still holding on to him and crying. Her and Rishid both looked up at him when he approached. Isis's grip on Marik's shoulders tightened considerably, and Rishid moved to block his path.

"Move. I'm going to fix him," he said hoarsely.

"You won't come anywhere near him!" Isis shrieked. "I won't have him becoming a monster like you! This is all your fault!" Her words stung him. It wasn't his fault. Malik had killed him. But was this all because of him somehow? Did the blame all fall on his shoulders?

"Let him through," Malik commanded behind them all. Isis and Rishid both looked to him. Rishid shuffled out of his way and Isis, looking chastised, slid away from Marik when he came forth again. Bakura settled onto his knees and took Marik into his lap as he has before. His fangs began to lengthen and the thought of what he was about to do repulsed him. But he didn't have time to waste. If he was going to do this, he had to do it soon. He would run out of time if it didn't happen quickly.

He bit hard into Marik's neck and began to suck. He heard the gasp of Marik's sister and looked up. Rishid was holding her back. She looked ready to break free and wrench Marik away from him without another moment's hesitation. His own brother was huddled close to Malik. All of them were giving him looks that made him feel like he was guilty of some wrongdoing. He wanted to yell at them all that he was only doing what they wanted, what they were forcing him to do, but he was busy swallowing each new mouthful of thick blood. Marik's tasted as delicious as ever, but now it made his stomach churn. He wanted to be sick.

Most of Marik's blood had wound up on the floor. There wasn't a lot left to drain out of him, but he took it all. When there was not a drop left more to take from him, Bakura cradled Marik's body in one arm while he bit open his free wrist with his teeth. He held the bleeding appendage over Marik's mouth and watched as his own blood dripped down. The moment that first drop fell, the infection in his blood began to spread through Marik. Drained of all his blood as he was and with no way to fight it off, it took hold quickly. Marik began to move in his arms and he withdrew his wrist and the supply of blood it provided. The creature in his arms stirred and whined and Bakura moved him gently up to his own neck and help him in place.

"Drink," he murmured, and Marik did just that. He winced as he felt fangs pierce through his skin and the pull of his blood leaving him. The pull was weak at first, the suckling motions of an infant. But it grew stronger as each second passed and Marik drank more and more. Bakura felt Mariks hands tighten around his arms to the point where it hurt and then some. His own hold on Marik grew weaker and weaker as he lost more and more of his own supply of blood, then faltered completely. Marik was unbothered by the lack of support. He drank with long, strong gulps. Bakura felt his entire body grow heavy and sag. It was time to stop. If Marik continued to drink from him, they would both die.

He tried to shake the fledgling off him, but he no longer had any strength with which to do so. Marik continued to drink from him and he could do nothing about it. He was reaching a point where he didn't want to, either. He could remember how hungry he'd been when he'd woken, how good it had felt to feed before the pain of the change came. And he remembered how it had felt to be so deeply connected to the one who'd sired him. He could feel that now as well. He could feel Marik. The world throbbed with Marik's essence and the same life blood that kept him alive and walking on this planet did the something now for Marik. He'd thought he'd lost Marik. When his eyes had first fallen on Marik's body, he'd felt the same pain as when is heart had stopped beating long ago, and he'd been left with the bewildered feeling of having lost something precious. But now Marik was here, Marik was with him, Marik was holding him. And he was so happy. Malik had said that Marik loved him. Bakura hadn't realized it was possible for him to feel the same.

"Love you," he mumbled, head drooping against Marik's own. He was so tired now. His words had been incomprehensible uttering to all. He was not capable of producing more than sounds and noises now. He did not notice when Marik finally pulled away from him, but he did hear the screams that came afterwards. He knew what those meant. He was glad he did not have to go through that torture again.

Bakura closed his eyes and did not wake up.

00000

Ryou sat on the edge of the bed and watched Marik slumber. The boy had spent a whole day writhing and screaming with the pain of the change, and another sleeping. This was the second he would spend in bed. Ryou thought it was good that he remain asleep while his body did all the work. Less painful. But his siblings were understandably concerned and just wished that he would wake up, even if it did mean more screaming.

Bakura too was still out, but he was sleeping in a guest bedroom. Ryou had just been in to check on him earlier. Marik's bedroom was a high-traffic area, but he thought he was the only one who ever checked in on Bakura. Ryou supposed he was okay with this. His brother had lost a lot of blood in the process of turning Marik, and would not wake up until he recovered that blood. The lack of visitors made it easier for Ryou to feed him the blood of any animals he was able to trap and kill. He knew his brother was in no danger, but he wished he would wake up all the same. The Ishtars had allowed him into their house and were civil to him, but Ryou still felt uncomfortable. They were always shooting strange glances at him when they thought he wasn't looking.

The door to Marik's room opened and Ryou stood up and readied himself to leave. No one had specifically told him he was not to be in here, but he didn't like being in the same room with Isis or Rishid for extended periods of time, especially not when it was Marik's room.

It was Malik that walked in. Ryou greeted him courteously and then prepared to leave. He had not seen much of Malik since the fight when they'd planned together. Since then, he hadn't been avoiding the younger of the two Ishtar twins, but he hadn't been planning on meeting him either. Things felt weird between them. He hadn't forced Malik to act in any way he hadn't wanted to, but it felt as if he had all the same. There was at least some part of him that was responsible for the guilt Malik himself had to feel.

"Wait," Malik called on his way out. Ryou paused in the open doorway and leaned back to look at him. "How is he?"

Ryou walked back inside the room and closed the door. "He's doing fine," he answered. "He's changing as a completely normal rate. I would estimate he should be done some time early tomorrow morning."

"Will he be awake by then?" Malik asked.

"That depends on him," Ryou said. Malik hummed and Ryou, thinking that he was no longer needed here, turned again to leave.

"Wait," Malik called a second time. Ryou waited. "I want you to do it to me. Make me like him."

"You want me to… turn you?" Ryou questioned, sure that he must have heard this wrong. The other male nodded. "Into a vampire?" Another nod. "Are you sure?"

"He's my brother," Malik answered simply. He did not need to say more. Ryou understood. He had wanted Bakura to turn him for the same reasons. When you lived with another person so like you in every way for your entire life, it became hard to leave them. Still, he felt like he needed to caution Malik against this.

"Are you completely positive you want this? It's dangerous, and it doesn't always work. If it doesn't, you will die," Ryou warned. Malik scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious!" Ryou protested, face reddening at how easily Malik dismissed his worries. "It's not as easy as it looks! I have to drain you of all your blood to make the infection move fast enough for it to work. You will be dead for several minutes. After that, I have to let you drink my own blood to let the infection in. There are no guarantees that it will work and you will become one of us. And if it does work and you begin to turn, if you take all of my blood, the both of us will die. It doesn't work if I don't survive through it. I'll still do it, but I want you to know exactly what could happen here."

Malik did not respond at first. His face took on a strange look and became unreadable. He took a few steps closer to Ryou, who took one back. His face was still red, though now it was from the remembrance of the last time Malik had been so close to him. If he thought about it, he could still recall the hungry way Malik had captured his lips. He tried not to. He was sure that kiss hadn't meant anything. Malik had been confused and upset to learn that he'd been lied to. He hadn't been thinking clearly. Malik was such a frail creature, more so than Ryou had ever though he was. He wanted to be Malik's friend and show him that it was all right to open up and to care, but he didn't think he could be anything more. Malik… he didn't want that, wasn't ready for it. Ryou would be his friend. He was okay with that. He would have to be okay with just that.

"Stop running away from me," Malik commanded, breaking Ryou from his thoughts. He noticed that he had backed up so much that he was almost pressing himself against the wall. Malik looked annoyed by this. When he came forth again, Ryou stood his ground. "Are you finally afraid of me now? Is that it?"

"No!" Ryou cried out, startled. He did not want Malik thinking that, because he wasn't, he wasn't! He was just… It had been different, when he and Malik had orchestrated their play-fight. He'd been close then, but Ryou had been too busy reading his moves, too busy trying to keep up the act while they planned. Now there was no fight to stop, no family that would be killed if they failed, and all he could focus on was Malik and how much he wanted what he couldn't have.

"Ryou," Malik said. Ryou's entire body froze. Malik saying his name was not something that happened. The first and only time it had was when Malik had threatened to kill him, when he'd been out of his mind. When they had kissed.

Malik leaned in close to him now too. He was not crazy this time and he did not seem unaware of everything. To Ryou, that made him seem all the more frail and in need of someone to protect him. He had to will his body not to react to his proximity. It took all of his mental strength not to reach out and grab Malik by his long blonde hair and force their lips together in a second hungry kiss. Malik was not ready for that! He had to keep reminding himself of this. He could not have Malik, he could not—

"Do you love me?" Malik asked, and Ryou's thought-process died. Malik's eyes were closed and he did not ask the question so much as he breathed it. So softly, softer than Ryou had ever seen him before. Answer him! his subconscious screamed, and he wanted to so badly, but he couldn't, because Malik wasn't ready for this, Malik was so easy to break—

"Yes," Ryou answered, closing his own eyes, not believing that he was doing this. "I love you. I fell in love with you when I first met you. You looked so lonely and I didn't want you to be. I wanted to be your friend. I want to be your friend."

"No you don't," Malik said. Ryou opened his eyes in confusion and looked into the one's gazing at him. "You don't just want that. You're willing to put your own life at risk to turn me into a vampire so I can be with Marik. I'm not right inside. I don't understand things. But I know that you wouldn't do that for me if you just wanted to be my friend. Tell me what you want. Make me understand it. Don't lie or sugar-coat it either. I want to know."

Ryou gulped. He couldn't help it, he blushed and looked away. Malik grabbed him by his chin and forced him to look once more. "Tell me," he pleaded, and ah, how could he resist? Ryou was terrified that he would say too much and frighten him off, but the intensity of Malik's gaze was forcing him to go through with this.

"I do want to be your friend," Ryou began, keeping his gaze on Malik. He was doing fine so far. He had not freaked out at the word "friend" or shown even a hint of discomfort. He seemed to be listening attentively, which was as good a sign as any. "But… I want to be more. I love you. I want to be around you, and I want to know more about you. I want to know about your life. I want to know how you feel and what you think, and I…I want to be able to protect you." Ryou paused here to search Malik's face, sure that if the other male was going to break out into that crazed laughter of his, this would be the point. But Malik did not do that. There were signs of strain on his face, like he was trying to understand. When he noticed the worry on Ryou's own face he just nodded for him to continue.

"I don't want you to be hurt anymore. And I don't want to have to fight with you, or lie. I just want to be with you, and for you and I to be happy. I want to touch you, and I want to kiss you… and I want you," Ryou finished, face beet red by now. Malik closed his eyes and Ryou waited. He was very worried now. He did not have the slighted clue what would happen next. He was floundering in the unknown.

"I feel something," Malik said finally. He opened his eyes and frowned. "It's not love. I don't know what that feels like. And I don't want you in the same way I want Marik. I don't need you like that." Ryou tried not to let his face fall too much as Malik continued on. Right now, Malik mattered. He'd known everything the other male was currently telling him. Malik wasn't ready for anything more. That type of thing did not matter.

"But I need you. You aren't afraid of me. You've never been afraid of me. You're an idiot for that," Malik continued, frown deepening. "I want you for that. I like having to not worry about controlling myself. I like you for that. I don't know if that's enough."

"Enough for what?" Ryou asked, voice raising in what he hoped wasn't too obviously a show of hope.

"Enough for you. You said you wanted me to tell you how I feel and think. I can do that. It's not pretty, but I can do it without having to fear that you'll run screaming away from me." Malik's mouth broke open into a sharp splitted grin that ran from ear to ear. It looked like he didn't feel too badly about the thought of Ryou screaming and terrified. Then the taller teen subdued himself once more and took back his frown.

"You said that you wanted to be happy. I don't know if I can do that. So maybe you're the one who should reconsider what you're asking," Malik finished, shrugging. Ryou blinked. Reconsider what? Wanting him? He wasn't going to do that. Not when Malik still looked so hurt and was so vulnerable right now, offering himself up.

Ryou did what he had wanted to do earlier. He wrapped his hands behind Malik's neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He pressed his lips against Malik's for the barest of seconds, careful not to go too fast or to overwhelm him with emotion. Just enough of a sensation to let him know that he was wanted. Ryou pulled away with a smile on his face. It widened when he saw the hint of an answering one of Malik's own face. Just a small thing, but it made Ryou feel so light, so happy.

"This is going to hurt just a bit," he warned as his fangs lengthened. Malik nodded and moved his head and hair to expose his neck. Ryou bit down and thought to himself, this could work. It really could.

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He felt the difference even before he awoke. His body felt strange, healthier, even though its deadened state argued against that possibility. He stopped himself from breathing and found that not having to do so to stay alive was liberating. When he did inhale, thousands of unique scents flooded his senses and mingled, each new one painting a masterpiece in his head. When he opened his eyes the world came in such startling Technicolor that it almost hurt. Lines were sharply defined and colors so bright he could taste them. He stood and his body displayed none of the previous pain that had crippled it so, but oozed of raw power. Marik was quite sure he could get used to this.

Isis was in the room with him. He had known of her presence earlier, but had only acknowledged it now as he turned to look at her. She was caught somewhere between relief as his waking and panic-stricken horror.

"Marik…" she whispered. "Your eyes…" He strode to his mirror and was a bit shocked himself to find them not their usual lilac color, but an angry dark red. He blinked and tried to change them back to their normal color, but he didn't know what he was doing. They would have to remain this way until he could figure it out.

"You're really one of them, aren't you?" Isis questioned softly from his left. She had stood and looked ready to touch him, but she was hesitating. She had covered up her uncertainty quite well, but Marik could smell her apprehension about him. He didn't think anyone would be able to hide anything from him anymore. Strangely, the knowledge that his sister was at least somewhat frightened by him did not bother him.

"Yes," he answered. He liked the sound of his voice. It was powerful and commanding. "I'm a vampire. Just like them."

"He… woke up you know. A couple of hours earlier," Isis said, sounding uncomfortable. Marik looked from the mirror image of himself to her. She would not meet his gaze. "I just thought you might want to know. I don't know how much you remember about… what happened, but he was the one who… well, who made you into this." Marik said nothing and now she raised her head and smiled an achingly fake smile.

"Well, come downstairs when you're ready. Everyone will be happy to see that you're awake and will no doubt want to talk to you. Dinner will be done soon too. That will be nice, won't it?" Isis said. Before things ran the risk of becoming any more awkward, she was out the door. What she had neglected to say was that dinner would no doubt be a disaster with all of them together. Just days ago they'd been trying to murder each other. Now if what Isis said was true and Ryou and Bakura were here, it meant that a very uneasy truce had taken hold of all of them. The stability of it would be put to the test at dinner.

He closed his eyes and drifted for the moment. What he remembered… He remembered the look on Malik's face when he'd killed him. Then he'd been dead, of course. After that, there had been Bakura's voice telling him to drink. And the blood. He salivated now just thinking about it. It had been the grandest thing he'd ever consumed, had made him feel so warm inside… There'd been the growing cold of Bakura's body and the innate knowledge that if he didn't stop, he would end them both. But he hadn't wanted to. He'd continued to drink. He couldn't think of what had finally given him the strength to pull away. And then there had been nothing but pain.

He must have consumed a lot of Bakura's blood for the other vampire to be asleep until just recently. Marik opened his eyes and scowled as he looked at the floor. Bakura was somewhere down there, waiting along with everyone else for him to come down. On impulse he pushed back the waist of his pajamas to reveal the skin of his hip. Marring it was the scarred over bite mark he had come to loathe. He hadn't really thought it would suddenly disappear, but it angered him to know he would be starting this new life still stuck in the position of slave. Bakura had done that to him. Bakura had also been the one to decide to change him into this.

Marik put the thought out of his mind. He would deal with Bakura later, especially now that he had the strength to be able to. For now he would dress and prepare himself for dinner.

He descended the stairs and felt all eyes on him. Isis was setting the table. She offered him another shaky smile when she caught his eye. Rishid was also in the dining room, already occupying the seat he normally took. He did not react to Marik's presence in any way, but when the blonde looked into the living room, he could feel his older brother's gaze on him. Malik and Ryou were sitting disconcertingly close together on the couch. Ryou smiled and waved at him and Malik offered him a small nod, which he returned. Bakura was seated on the other side of the room and looked pale and withdrawn. When he heard Marik's footsteps he looked up sharply. Marik coolly let his gaze drift over him, then dismissed him altogether.

"Oh good. I was just about to call you down," Isis said. She motioned for him to take a seat. "Everyone come over here now. I thought that we could all eat together." Ryou rose and took Malik's arm to pull him up. Malik went along willingly, and ignored the questioning quirk of Marik's eyebrow as he passed. Marik also headed into the dining room. Two extra chairs had been added to the table to seat everyone. Marik took the one across from his brother and nearest to Rishid. Ryou was sitting beside Malik, and Rishid sat at the head of the table. The other end was usually where Isis sat. Marik realized a little too late that that left the only seat open for Bakura as the one next to him, which the vampire slid into. Isis handed them all plates of food and then took her own seat.

They all sat for a good ten minutes in silence, the sounds of Isis' and Rishid's silverware chinking against their plates the only thing to take away from it. The tension in the room was thick and cloying. Ryou was the only one who appeared to be visibly affected by it. He kept fidgeting in his chair and opening his mouth like he meant to say something.

"Are you not hungry, Marik?" Isis finally asked, breaking the silence in quite possibly the most tactless of ways. Marik looked down at his plate. Lots of green food. He was hungry all right, but not for any of this. He smiled at his sister, only inadvertently realizing he had fangs now when she visibly cringed. He shut his mouth quickly and tried to roll with it.

"Not really," he answered. Isis did not respond. She looked back at her own food and began to toy with it. Bakura, meanwhile, tried to be getting his attention. Marik continued to ignore his attempts.

"This is foolish," Rishid said. "Enough. Marik is awake. We don't have to continue this any longer. We can get these two out of our house and concentrate on finding a way to fix him."

"'Fix me'?" Marik demanded, rising from his chair to glare hard at Rishid. "Nothing is wrong with me! I feel better now than I ever have before!"

"Look at yourself," Rishid said quietly. Marik slammed his fists into the table.

"Marik," Isis said lowly, bringing his attention to her. "Rishid is right. You aren't acting like yourself. Sit back down and calm yourself. We need to decide what we're doing here, and you yelling is not going to get us anywhere. Rishid, please try to keep your opinions to yourself and not upset anyone where. We're going to figure something out." Marik frowned but sat down, and Isis turned her attention to Bakura and Ryou. "Do either of you know of a way to turn Marik back?"

"You can't," Bakura said roughly. "His human body is dead. Fuckface over there killed him. You all remember that, don't you? How about instead of bickering over Ryou and I, you figure out what you're going to do with that psychopath, yeah?"

"Bakura!" Ryou said sharply. "Can we please not do this right now! We already talked about this! It was the only option we had available at the time!"

"What was?" Marik interrupted. Bakura glanced at him and fell silent. Ryou tuned to look at his plate of food.

"What was the only option?" he asked again when it became apparent that no one was answering. "Killing me? Yeah, I've been wondering about that, actually. I thought I had just managed to piss you off one too many times, but now it doesn't look that way. Why did you do it, Malik?" Malik's brows had become bunched and drawn together. Marik could tell that his words were upsetting everyone, but he didn't care. He'd had enough with caring about everyone else.

"We had to," Ryou started. "If there had been a different way, we would have taken it. But there wasn't. If you became a vampire, we thought that—"

"We figured it would make the fighting stop," Malik finished, looking hard into Marik's eyes, daring him to go against this. "Ryou came to me for help and convinced me that the fighting needed to stop. So we thought of a plan to make that happen. I let the two of them escape when we got to the warehouse. The fighting that happened was a way for the two of us to figure out exactly what we would do, and to wait for you to arrive. We decided that if you loved him—" he stopped here to point at Bakura, "—then you wouldn't care what you woke up as. And if he loved you, he wouldn't let you die. So I stabbed you and he turned you and everything worked out like we'd expected."

"Malik!" Isis shouted. "You did this on purpose? You condemned your own brother to this life?"

"It wasn't only him!" Ryou spoke up, but Malik silenced him with an outstretched arm. They shared a look that held some meaning and Ryou sat back down in his seat and frowned at his vegetables.

"Yes. I didn't snap or have some fit. I killed him while being completely aware of my actions. You wouldn't kill the vampire who had just saved the life of your brother. And you didn't," Malik finished, shrugging.

"Malik I-I don't even know what to say—!"

"Then this is probably an equally bad time to announce that I'm also a vampire. I asked Ryou and he changed me," Malik interrupted, showing off a flash of red eyes to everyone at the table. This time even Rishid could not keep his reaction to these words in check. His fist tightened around his silverware until his knuckles were white. The rest of the table looked on in stunned silence. Even Ryou had gone a shade whiter than normal. Malik was impervious to all of this. He picked up his silver ware and began to rearrange his food in some pattern that must have made sense in his mind.

Bakura was the first one to react to these words. Marik had to scoot his chair sideways to get out of the other's way as he stood from his chair with nearly enough force to send the table toppling over. His eyes shown fiercely red and his skin seemed paler than ever. He was breathing hard too, and Marik had to wonder how much of this was from his age and how much was from the large amount of blood he'd stolen from the vampire.

"You turned him, Ryou? Did you even think before doing it, or were you so caught up in your feelings to bother remembering that there was a good chance you could have died?"

Ryou visibly blanched after hearing this. Malik's red eyes narrowed, but before he could call Bakura out on his words, Marik rose to do it. He didn't know what had happened between Malik and Ryou while he'd been asleep, but he had his own fish to fry with Bakura.

"And what about you, Bakura? Did you think at all when you bit me? You were in just as much danger as Ryou," he said.

"Oh, so now you're talking to me again? How nice," Bakura sneered, his own eyes still glowing that alluring red.

"I got over the whole 'Aww, he's being cute when he acts like that!' thing a while ago. Stop being an asshole and just answer the damn question," Marik shot back.

"I didn't have a choice in the matter! You were dead! There was nothing else I could have done if I wanted to see you again! You know how I feel. Was there any other option left for me?" Bakura hissed, leaning in close to him.

"Oh, I know how you feel, do I? It doesn't really seem that way to me when I consider one very important thing you've done to me," Marik responded acidly, giving back just as much venom as he was given.

"Marik…" Bakura growled, eyes looking briefly in the direction of the others at the table. He wanted him to stop, save whatever this was for when there were no other listeners. Just for that, Marik was going to continue regardless. He wasn't going to let himself be bossed around.

"You marked me, remember, Bakura? You and Ryou both told me it was away to let others know that someone was watching over me. But that's not entirely correct, is it? What that scar really signifies is that I'm some kind of slave, or a toy. And with it still on me as a vampire, I'm lower than that, aren't I? Just your pretty little bitch. So no, I'm not really sure how you feel about me. I'm either some human you apparently 'fell in love' with if Malik is correct, or I'm some human you decided was a good enough fuck that you wanted to keep around. You tell me which one it is," Marik hissed, enjoying the way Bakura's anger melted. He had nothing to say. He had nothing to say because the other vamps had been right all along and his marking really was a slave brand.

"That's not what it means," Bakura mumbled.

"Really? Because I've hear otherwise. Well what about you, Ryou, would you like to tell me what it actually means then?" Marik asked snidely.

"That's the most common definition for it, but Bakura didn't mean it that way! I know he didn't!" Ryou said. He was looking at his brother, urging him to say something, but Bakura was not answering his imploring look. Smirking to himself about the mess he'd made, Marik left his seat at the table. Isis and Rishid looked completely flabbergast at this newest development, and Marik took a vindictive pleasure from this as well. The only person who looked at him as he ascended the stairs that led to his room was Malik.

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"What the hell was that all about?" Malik questioned loudly. Ryou looked up at him from his spot in the dining room where he was busy picking up dishes. Shortly after Marik's outburst, Isis and Rishid had packed up and left. That meant the only people in the house were now him, Malik, Bakura, and Marik upstairs.

"Newly changed vampires are often quite volatile," Ryou answered, and then went about continuing his work of clearing off the table.

"That wasn't just volatile. That was a grade A bitch fit like I've never seen before. You really fucking pissed him off," Malik laughed. Bakura snarled at him from his position in the corner and Malik laughed harder. At least someone was having a good time, Ryou thought. But he found himself smiling just a bit as well. It troubled him that his brother was upset, but he couldn't remain sad for too long. Not when he couldn't help remembering that he and Malik were together, and that Malik had proven as much at dinner when he'd defended him. Just the thought of it made Ryou's smile stretch full across his face. But then it fell whenever he looked at Bakura and thought about how terribly mistaken Marik was. Something needed to be done about this. This was no way to start what he had envisioned going through with the plan of turning Marik into a vampire.

"You have to go and talk to him," Ryou said, bringing the attention of the other two to him. "You have to explain to him what it means. You can't just sit there and sulk and hope that maybe when he grows out of this he'll realize he was wrong and come running back to you."

"I'm not sulking," Bakura argued. Malik broke out into laughter again.

"Bakura," Ryou sighed, "just go to him! I'm sure he's upset too! This entire time he hadn't had a clue how much he means to you! That had to have hurt. Just go up there and tell him that you love him!"

"Agh, okay! I'll go talk to him! Just stop throwing around all that romance shit! Both of you! This isn't like one of your cheesy soap opera or those trashy romance books you read, got it, Ryou? I'm not just going to start spouting shitty poetry and woo him!" Bakura snarled. Ryou almost burst into some laughter of his own as he tried not to picture Bakura doing just that and failed. He managed to restrain his urge to a few unruly snorts instead. As Bakura went up the stairs cursing and damning him and Malik both, Ryou looked over at Malik and lost it completely. He knew it was bad form to laugh in such an uncalled for situation, but his only consolation was that Malik was doing it too, and that made it all better.

His laughter faded when he heard the sound of Marik's door opening. Opening doors were definitely a good sign. Now if only the rest of the conversation would flow as smoothly. That was his hope, anyway. He strained his ears to hear anything from inside the room, but found he was unable to. That was also a good sign… right?

"It won't be over that quickly," Malik said, shaking his head. He mentioned to the stairs and Ryou's eyes followed. "He was pissed as hell and he's damn not going to sit around and listen to some explanation he doesn't want to believe."

"But he'd wrong! It doesn't mean that!" Ryou protested. Malik got up from the couch and headed into the dining room. He idly toyed with a fork Ryou had yet to collect off the table.

"What does it mean?" he asked.

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"Will you just shut up and listen?" Bakura hissed. "I'm trying to fucking explain here, and all you're doing is bitching and interrupting!"

"Because maybe I don't want to hear more of your lies!" Marik snapped, fists clenching. "Even if it doesn't mean that I'm some little toy, I'm sick of the way you've been acting!"

"I haven't been acting differently! You're the one who's been ignoring me and yelling all because of a little fucking misunderstanding you won't let me explain!" Bakura's eyes were burning dangerously bright, and he'd known he shouldn't have come up here, shouldn't have come up here, shouldn't have listened to Ryou. He should have just waited until Marik adjusted and got his tempter under control, but he hadn't wanted to wait, he had wanted to just get this shit over with and—

"You make it so easy to hate you," Marik responded, smiling a bitter little smile. "You're such a fucking idiot."

"Fine!" Bakura growled, teeth gnashing, "Since I'm so fucking stupid and you're got your head too far up your ass to bother to listen, why don't you just tell me what you want?"

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"I want to do it to you," Malik said. His hands had at some point come to rest on Ryou's shoulders, and now he found their weight as much of a surprise as Malik's words. His mouth fell open and he looked up to see if Malik could possibly be serious and saw the strange way his eyes glinted. There was something primitive in there and Ryou instinctively knew that he didn't want to say no here. He wouldn't have ever, but his surprise at the suddenness of the request had caught him unaware.

"If you want to, you can," Ryou said, more embarrassed by how quietly he'd said the words than the words themselves. Malik's mouth curled into a fearsome grin, and then his fangs were sinking into Ryou's neck and sucking and it felt so good that Ryou forgot to keep up his pretense of breathing.

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There were teeth biting all over his neck and Bakura was unsure of how he'd gotten pressed up against the wall like this, but he wasn't going to complain about it. He was half-hard already and he could think of few things better to do than this right now.

He moved his hands to touch and was bitten so hard he felt skin break. When Marik pulled away from his neck his lips were stained as red as his eyes and though he was smiling, there wasn't much amusement there.

"No," Marik said. "You don't get to fucking do anything. This is what I want and you're going to just lay there and let me have it."

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Ryou was on his back on the couch before he knew it. He was panting and his mind was still cloudy and filled with Malik. He'd been so close and so deep and it had been terrifying and thrilling all at once to know someone so intimately besides yourself. There had been doors and doors and he had been granted access to them all. And it had been fulfilling but frightening, because if he could see this much of Malik, could Malik see this much of him? He'd known at once that the answer was yes, he could. Malik could see all of him and that scared him because what if there was something he didn't like? What if something went wrong? The moment he'd started to breathe too quickly there had been a hand on his chest, and that had steadied him. Malik was here and he had a chance to learn more than he'd ever hoped to learn about the person he loved and he took the chance while he had it.

His pants were also gone before he was aware of their absence, and then his underwear before he could react in any sort of way. And Malik was between his legs. And oh god Malik was between his legs!

"What are you doing?" Ryou asked, voice a breathy little whisper as he strove to recover from the intimacy he'd felt when Malik had marked him.

"Taking what I want," Malik responded, and then he was stroking him and coaxing him and Ryou was up faster than he'd ever been.

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He felt like his body was on fire. He was burning up but he relished the sensation all the same. It was something new and right now Marik was appreciating more and more the new things in his life.

Like his new strength, for starters. Without it he wouldn't have been able to keep Bakura pressed to the wall when he started struggling.

He was pissed, that much was very obvious. But Marik was more so, and now he was going to have his way and do something about it. If Bakura wanted to mark him as a slave and a toy then fine, but Marik was going to do it right back. He was going to have some fun playing with Bakura and showing him how it felt to be on the other side of the power struggle.

He kissed Bakura roughly and with enough impact and pressure to make it hurt. He forced the other's mouth open and invaded. His newly acquired fangs got in the way quite frequently and made numerous cuts and scratches. Marik hardly cared. Bakura's blood tasted excellent and fueled his own fire and hunger even more. He was unbelievably hard. He pressed himself against Bakura and ground his hips to relief some of the pressure. It didn't work. Snarling, Marik finally unpinned Bakura from the wall and shoved him onto the bed instead.

He half-expected Bakura to leave, was more than sure he would get up and start fighting. But the older vampire did neither of these options. He remained and looked at Marik with a defiant set of his lips. Marik advanced toward the bed, stripping his clothes as he went, thinking of how much fun it would be to obliterate that look completely.

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Malik had gone from stroking to sucking and Ryou was all of a sudden quite certain this had to be a dream. He hadn't had a dream like this in a very, very long time. Being that he was technically dead, though his body still worked the same if there was blood in it, he didn't have a reason for dreams like this, and his sex drive was mostly nonexistent. The reasoning behind sex was procreation, and there wasn't much of a point in that instinct if he no longer possessed the ability to reproduce. Luckily, that meant unexpected wet dreams usually no longer occurred, although this was obviously one of those nights where his body just hadn't gotten the memo, because this was not real. It was all happening too fast and too perfectly, so it had to be a dream.

"Oh fffuck!" Ryou swore, hands flying down to grip tightly at Malik's hair. Had to be a dream. There was no other way Malik would be deepthroating him.

He clenched his bottom lip between his teeth and hoped the pain would wake him up. While this was amazing right now, once he realized it was not real, it would only feel ten times worse. Better to get it over with then sink into the illusion any further. But all the lip-biting was doing as preventing him from saying any more expletives, which was strange, because he'd thought he would have woken up by now.

Malik stopped and lifted his head from between Ryou's thighs. The disappointment he felt at the removal of the wet warmth surrounding him was great enough to prove that this was not a dream. He blushed ferociously, even more so when he tried not to think about how hot the string of saliva still connecting the tip of Malik's tongue to his member looked.

"I liked it when you swore," Malik said. "It was interesting. Do it more." And then he dived back down and swallowed Ryou whole, and the boy himself opened up his mouth and let the world know just how many curses in how many different languages he had learned over the years.

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Even if he wasn't leaving, Bakura didn't make things easy for him. The moment he sat on the bed they began snarling and biting and scratching. There were drops of blood staining all areas of the sheets, and Bakura's clothes were as good as ruined. When Marik finally wrestled Bakura underneath him, he tore the clothing off and flung the ripped shreds away somewhere in his room.

"I'm going to have my fun with you and there's not a thing you'll be able to do to stop me from it," Marik leered. He had his hands pinning down Bakura's arms, himself situated on top of him, their erections both squished somewhere between their bodies. Bakura's pale skin was flushed red and he breathed loudly as a result of their fighting. His eyes bore into Marik's and showed every bit of the fire and anger he'd been expecting to see, but without any of the action or fight. Bakura was furious, as he was always furious, but he was not fighting against Marik in any real way. Even now Marik's claws were digging furrows into Bakura's wrists, yet the other was not trying in any way to unsettle him. It made Marik's own rage grow.

"Do you even care?" he spat out. Bakura's lips moved into a snide little smirk and Marik pressed down against him, hoping to use his own weight to ease it somehow.

"If you're going to do it, then do it. Don't just sit there bitching about it," Bakura said. Marik's expression darkened.

"Fine," he snarled.

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Ryou screamed and forced Malik down as far as he could possibly go when he came. He shuddered as Malik continued the ministrations of his mouth through Ryou's orgasm, only lifting his head and letting the shaft fall from his mouth when he'd finished. The sight of Malik down there, licking his lips and eyes half-lidded with lust, sent a pathetic twitch through Ryou's softening penis, as if it were trying to find some life left in it. Malik raised himself up over Ryou and leant to mash their lips together in a passionate open-mouthed kiss that made Ryou's whole body tingle.

"You should have shown that side of yourself sooner," Malik chuckled darkly. "I'd have noticed you a lot quicker that way."

"I didn't know I had a side like this," Ryou responded. Everything with Yami had been gentle and controlled and smooth. He and Malik were as different as different could be. Where Yami had been sure of himself and strong, Malik was broken and confused under the confident front he put up. Yami had never used any disguises, but his words had often held double or obscure meanings. Malik said what he meant. Sex with Yami had always been enjoyable, but it had also been a thing that never changed. Though this was his first time with Malik, Ryou got the feeling it would never be exactly the same. Malik now was different from the Malik before. Now he was confidant and in his comfort zone. It meant that he'd probably had a great many lovers before, but Ryou didn't mind too much. He wanted to learn more about this Malik too. And apparently he had a bit to learn about this side of him Malik brought out.

"Well I like it," Malik very nearly purred. Ryou grinned and eased himself up on the couch. If Malik liked it, then he would show more of it. He snaked a hand down between the two of them and felt with a sort of thrill of excitement, that Malik was hard. The discover that he'd been able to do that was more than enough to motivate Ryou to continue further. He unzipped the other male's pants and freed his erection from the confines of his boxers.

"Do you have anything we could use?" Ryou asked cheekily as he slowly stroked the organ in his hand. Normally there was no way he would act so forward, but right not all he could really think of was how good Malik's tan skin looked when hot and flushed, and how much he wanted to do this.

"My sister is bound to have some lotion hidden away somewhere," Malik grinned, pausing as his body shuddered. "Maybe we should go find some?"

"I think that's a good idea," Ryou grinned.

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He was bleeding. He was bleeding from numerous small wounds actually, quite a bit of them stinging bite marks, but there was one specific injury he had accrued that Bakura was focused on over the others.

His blood slicked everything down and made it easier for Marik to move inside him, but even the decrease in friction did not make the act hurt any less. Marik had torn something the moment he'd first pushed into him, and after, each new thrust had likely torn something else. His rhythm was nonexistent and his thrusts and movements irregular, sometimes shoving himself deep inside Bakura, something making only shallow movements. Bakura's hands were both pinned over his head as Marik thrust away into him, as if the blonde thought he would try to escape. Bite marks littered his neck and collarbone from when Marik ceased his ill-timed movements long enough to bite down viciously and draw yet more blood before beginning to grind against him all over again.

He tried not to wince at the pain of Marik's deep thrusts, kept his scowl in place even when he felt sharp teeth pierce his flesh. He forcibly willed himself not to respond in any way to what was being done to him. Marik was looking for him to fight back so that he would have something to fight against. He wasn't going to give him that. This wasn't Marik. Right now, this was Marik's original anger and hurt multiplied by ten because of his change. The stubbornness was still all his though, and Bakura knew that the boy wouldn't fucking listen until he saw he was wrong. So he would wait and allow this Marik to continue to fuck him until the Marik he was waiting for opened his eyes.

Marik withdrew a hand from his wrists long enough to move one of his legs, open him up wider so that there was more room to work with. Bakura tried again not to let anything show on his face and to ignore the blood that was pooling on the sheets, and bid his time.

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"Do it," Ryou said. He was through with waiting. The thought hit him that maybe all of this was progressing too fast, maybe he needed to slow down, but he had waited long enough and now he wanted Malik.

Malik did not ask him if he was sure or if he was ready. Malik held himself with one hand and guided himself into Ryou. Ryou shut his eyes against the pain of the entry, familiar though he hadn't felt it in a great many years. Malik did not wait for him to adjust to his size or become accustomed to the hurt. Malik began moving immediately, though he did not remove himself from where he was buried inside Ryou. He rolled his hips once, twice, then began to establish a rhythm with the movement that made everything hurt a lot less. He leant in close to Ryou and breathed hot against the side of his neck where he'd bitten him as he rocked his hips.

Ryou shuddered when he felt Malik's tongue on the mark, lapping at there the scar tissue would form. His tongue ran back and forth across it and the rest of Ryou's neck and collarbone, never biting or nipping or kissing, just using his tongue. It was enough. The action was both lewd and sensual and went straight to Ryou's groin. He whined and moved his hips, rubbing the head of himself against Malik's lean abdomen. Even the smallest of touch against his most sensitive spot felt good, and though he'd already achieved one orgasm, he needed another. He bucked his hips again. Against his neck, Malik groaned.

"Do you want me?" he asked.

"Yes, I want you," Ryou responded. Malik pulled nearly all the way out of his body and slammed back in, making Ryou gasp.

"Are you afraid of me?" Malik asked.

"No!" Ryou shouted, eager. Malik withdrew and slammed into him again, and Ryou's fingers scrabbled to find purchase on Malik's shoulders.

"Do you love me?" he asked, looking at Ryou closely.

"I love you," Ryou answered.

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It was all wrong. It wasn't working as it should. He had Bakura where he wanted him and he was showing him how it felt to be used as a toy or a pet, but it wasn't how he'd imagined it. The scenario was the same, but the troubling feelings of nausea he had now forming in the pit of his stomach had never been there before.

He thrust ever harder into Bakura to try and erase the feeling. He had to give the man underneath him credit for dealing with it as well as he was. Marik could feel the blood and though Bakura tried his best to cover it, he saw every time the spark of hurt that flicked across his face. He wanted to stop and he wanted to apologize for what he was doing, but a larger part of him still urged him to continue. He had not made his point yet. Bakura was still looking at him with that defiant glare, still trying to make it look like he commanded some measure of authority that Marik did not want him to have. He wanted—needed—to make Bakura pay, to make him feel the same way Marik felt. So he thrust and bit and tightened his hands more and more around Bakura's wrists and ignored the blood.

He told himself to be angry and he was, but it was no longer solely at Bakura. His rage was slowly sifting to himself. Every time he pressed into Bakura so deeply that he was forced to feel the blood, he found himself snarling at his own actions. He leant over Bakura's prone form to bite into his shoulder. When he felt the jolt of pain run through the body he laid on top of he wished it were his own. He wanted Bakura to fight back against him and yell and draw blood of his own, to give him some reason for his rage. But Bakura remained lying there, submissive, doing the very thing Marik wanted and did not want at the same time.

"Fuck!" he yelled at himself. He was losing his erection. He tried to bully his way into Bakura and managed to, but after several rolls of his hips he no longer could. He pulled out completely and couldn't quite ignore the red staining him.

"Fuck! Fuck! I hate you so much! I fucking hate you! This is all your fault, you asshole! You, you—!" He could not adequately find the words to describe his fury. With horror he noticed he was close to tears. He was not going to fucking cry, he thought to himself. He was not. Crying and feeling sorry would mean that Bakura had won and he had not.

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There was something about Ryou that Malik admired, that made this act better than it should have been. It had been some time since he'd had sex. Probably the last time had been in Egypt, some female he could hardly remember who had thrown herself at him. People had wanted him back in Egypt. Women and men had desired their fills of his flesh, and Malik had not been picky in letting them have it. Lust and desire were tools that he knew and could use. It was easy to shape people with them and to bend them to his will when he acted in the right way.

When they'd moved he had found no reason to acquire a fuckbuddy. Without a goal in mind, manipulation through carnal lust seemed useless. He thought that the gap between partners could have accounted for some of the passion he felt now, but on the whole he largely attributed it to Ryou. There was something about Ryou that made his every movement magnificent, every touch of their sweat-slicked bodies intimate and electric. Maybe it was the love Ryou professed to having for him, but of course he could not be sure of that. He didn't understand it. All he knew was that the idea of a feeling so deep and full no longer terrified him as much as it should have. If it meant that he could have Ryou like this whenever he wanted, he smirked to himself, then he did not mind at all.

Ryou was panting and moaning and scrabbling at his back, leaving angry red lines that more often than not bled. When Ryou had first touched him there, Malik had nearly lost himself. He had noticed the way Ryou had looked at his scars when he'd first removed his shirt. It hadn't bothered him much, but feeling hands on the designs had troubled him much more than he cared to admit. It was the feeling of Ryou's warmth clenched tightly around him that simultaneously made him long to tighten his hands and destroy as well as made him remember where he was and that he needed to control himself. Now, the sensation of Ryou leaving his own marks over those scars aroused Malik more than even the sight of the boy on his back, cock erect and weeping because of him.

He thought he could get addicted to this if he wasn't careful. Ryou's body was made for him to be inside it. They pressed together perfectly. Ryou impaled himself upon Malik's length with just as much effort as Malik expanded by shoving forward. Every time he let his lips and tongue travel the expanse of pale skin Ryou had offered up so readily, he was greeted with some reaction—either a twitch of a tremble or an impatient rock of the hips… or better yet, one of those lusty keening moans that drove Malik forward with ever more intensity. And now that he was the creature that he'd been turned into, it enhanced every sensation and feel. All of his other fucks were bland in comparison, insignificant little blips in his mind.

He could get very addicted to this. To this, and to the paradox of strengths and weaknesses that was Ryou. The male was submissive, body built to be touched and fucked and protected. But Ryou had said that he wanted to be the one to be the protector—which was laughable—and the hint of dominance he'd shown when he'd shoved Malik down onto his cock and forced him to swallow it made Malik's own member throb angrily at just the memory. He could easily become ensnared if he wasn't careful, but the curious part of it all was that he did not want to be careful. Ryou wasn't afraid of him. Rather, Ryou wanted to learn more about him. And anyone that fucked up naturally gained Malik's own attention, even some measure of respect. He would peel Ryou back layer by layer until he knew all there was to know. And now, he had all of eternity to do so.

88888888

He'd done it. Bakura ignored the pain of his body as he shifted and sat up in the bed. His neck and shoulders hurt from the bites and his wrists and legs hurt from being held in place for so long, and between his legs hurt for obvious reasons. He was quite sure that he was going to need blood real fucking soon because he'd lost more than he'd thought, but he'd done it. Marik was sitting as far away from him on the bed as he could possibly get, and Bakura could smell the salt of his tears. He crawled over to Marik and ignored his squawk of protest when he turned the blonde around and licked the tear trails that had run down his cheeks.

"Bakura, what—? Get the fuck off me!" Marik yelled. He pushed at him, but Bakura held fast and stayed firmly put.

"You ready to listen now?" he asked.

"Holy fucking… Gods Bakura, I just fucking raped you and you're climbing all over me like you want me to do it again! Get the fuck off!" Marik yelled. His voice sounded hoarse.

"First of all," Baura began, you didn't rape me. Hurt like a bitch, but I could have easily left if I'd wanted to. You didn't force me to do shit." Marik gave him a very pointed and very angry look at the bites forming a dark ring around his neck, and at the various bloodied areas on the sheets. He was still just as angry as before, but now all that rage and hate was directed to himself. While not a better solution, it did make him a bit easier to talk to.

"Those will heal," Bakura shrugged. It was slow going because of the low quantities of blood in him, but now that he was not accumulating any new injuries, he could already feel his skin begin to stitch itself back together. "And I'm not totally against blood play either, I'd just like to be in the mood for it next time."

"That wasn't blood play," Marik snarled, and there was that hate, that loathing. "That was—"

"Pretty fucking normal," Bakura interrupted. "Recently turned vampires are volatile, or whatever shit Ryou said. They've suddenly got all this new power and strength and the wind up getting it into their heads that they can do whatever the hell they want, and they freak. The break thing and trash things and do a lot of stupid shit until A: they get themselves killed, B: someone puts them in their place, or C: they get over it on their own. That wasn't anything I wasn't already expecting." Of course what he was not going to say was that usually new vampires weren't quite so volatile and violent, but he didn't feel the need to mentioned that fact when Marik actually seemed to be paying attention to him now.

"So you're saying that everything I did and feel is normal?" Marik questioned delicately, voice queerly deadened.

"Pretty much. What isn't normal is your brother acting like the most well adjusted fuck in the world, but he was pretty insane to begin with. Probably doesn't even notice the mood swings," Bakra commented.

"And that was supposed to make me feel better?" Marik asked.

"No," Bakura said, becoming serious now. "That was supposed to explain why you feel like you're made of hate and rage and nothing of any substance. You were pissed at me before you turned, because of the mark. Afterward, you took that anger and multiplied it to get what you have here. And pretty much anything that would have hurt me sounded like a good idea at the time."

"And it was all for nothing, right? Because the mark doesn't mean what I think it does." Marik's voice was still deadened, and by this point even his eyes had become blank. Bakura didn't like it. It made Marik look too much like his brother when he was having one of his freak out fits. Marik was fighting some battle in head, and Bakura didn't know what the result of it would be or how he could help. All he could really do was just answer Marik's questions.

"It does mean what you heard. That's the most common meaning of it and the most widely used, but not what I had in mind for you. It's still a mark of ownership because it carries my scent, but it isn't mean to label you as a slave. If a vampire bites another and leaves their mark on them, it means exactly what you heard. But if the other vampire reciprocates the first's feeling and leaves a mark of their own, it means something more like… they're soulmates, or some shit like that," Bakura explained, wrapping that whole last part up quite quickly, vaguely embarrassed that he had to explain it.

"That's gay as shit," Marik said.

"Yeah, it is," Bakura agreed, thinking that if Marik was joking around, he must be getting better. But he still looked as empty and Malik-like as ever.

"Obviously," Bakura continued, trying to be unperturbed by the long pause in his narrative and the tense silence, "when you were a human, you couldn't mark me in any way. Even if you bit me or something, the bruise would have faded away. Being that you were human and bore my smell, the other's assumed it meant you belonged to me."

"But you meant it the other way?" Marik asked carefully. He seemed to be tiptoeing around something big here, but Bakura could not begin to fathom what.

"I meant it the other way," he agreed, also careful. He felt like he was talking of a tightrope. Marik nodded slowly, and then something changed. And he was falling.

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Ryou was going insane. He could not remember Yami ever having been like this. But then he could not remember anything much right now, or think beyond words of "Oh god!", "Harder!", and what was apparently his favorite: "Fffuck!"

With every quick snap of Malik's hips it felt like he had to open his mouth to let something out, whether it be a curse, moan, or command he was unsure of himself until he heard his own voice saying it. Everything felt so good and healing abilities nonwithstanding, he knew he'd be feeling this in the morning, but he really did not fucking care. This was perfect and Malik was perfect and oh god! was Malik ever perfect. He loved Malik and appreciated all facets of him, but there was nothing quite so good as watching his face screw up in concentration as he made sure to abuse the spot inside Ryou again and again. This was Malik's element and he was positively alive and entrenched in it.

Ryou screamed again as another thrust sent Malik ramming against his prostate and god he hoped Bakura could not hear any of this. He wanted to be quiet, but such a thing was impossible when Malik wanted the exact opposite. He shouted again when this time Malik reached down between their bodies to grab his own member and began to stroke it. Ryou hissed through his teeth and pumped his hips enthusiastically, jolting Malik deeper inside him.

"Faster, do it faster!" Ryou commanded, and Malik increased both the tempo of his thrusts and the pump of his hand. He was becoming erratic in his movements and no longer slamming into with quite as much force as before, but he was just as close to his end as Malik and did not care. His nails dug into Malik's shoulder blades and in the back of his head he hoped this did not hurt, but another part of him noted that Malik seemed most eager to respond when he did this, so he did it often. Malik leant over him and licked the shell of his ear and Ryou squeezed him tight. Then he felt Malik shudder above him and cry out as he reached his own release.

"Keep going," Ryou commanded. Malik breathed deeply and nodded sort of nuzzling into his neck with the movement. His hand had stopped its motions when the orgasm had hit him but now Malik resumed his stroke, rocking his hips steadily against Ryou, giving him just enough stimulation to send him completely over the edge.

"Tell me you love me," Malik purred into his neck. Ryou turned and held him close.

"I love you."

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His anger wasn't completely gone; it had just redirected itself from anger at Bakura to anger at himself and Bakura. He was furious with himself for doing what he'd done and at Bakura for not stopping him. He was disgusted by his tears. He loathed himself for fucking up so completely and utterly, and Bakura for not having forced him to listen sooner and for ever having put that god-damned mark on him. His rage was all swirling and burning around him and he didn't fucking care that this apparently was all normal behavior, hurting the people you really didn't want to hurt, because he didn't buy it. If he did, it would be an excuse for his actions and he didn't want a fucking excuse. He wanted this to stop.

He pushed Bakura down onto the bed, noticed that he'd surprised him. Bakura was still bare and that was good, because that was what he wanted. He crawled along the length of Bakura's body and came to a stop between his legs, right where he wanted to be.

"I'm going to make you mine. I'm going to make it so that everyone will always know, no matter where you go, that you belong to me. No one else will have you. But I won't take away your pride. I won't do it where everyone will be able to see it. I don't want them to see it. Only I will," Malik said, and then he bent down and bit Bakura in the same place he'd been bitten when he'd been a human.

It was a different bite than his others because this one was meant to mark and not hurt, and he could feel the differences already. Chemicals he was not even aware of were injected into the site of the bite to make sure it would scar over and never be removed. That huge sense of Bakura filled him, like it had when he'd been marked, only it seemed now that everything was expanded and that there was even more for him to see than the last time. He did not allow his mind to lose himself as he did before. He heard Bakura make a breathy little gasp and focused on that. He wanted this to work. He was doing now what he'd wanted to do to begin with by making Bakura understand how he had felt, and he hoped this was enough. He just wanted to be normal.

When he pulled away Bakura was flushed and aroused and panting, and Marik found that he was too. He felt hazy, unsure if he was still burning like before. Bakura whined beneath him and writhed on the bed.

"Fuck!" he swore. "Fuck! Marik-ah, Marik, do something! Fuck-just fuck me!"

Marik stared, unable to comprehend how this made any sense at all, so Bakura growled and pulled him into a bruising kiss.

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Ryou ended the kiss and Malik stared at him like he wanted to know why the hell he'd done something so stupid. Ryou blushed and suddenly what he'd been thinking about asking seemed utterly dimwitted. His fingers danced absently over the already-healed marking on his neck. He only became aware of their movement when Malik's gaze fixated on there long enough. Ryou blushed even more deeply and cast his traitorous hands down into his lap.

"You want to ask me a question," Malik stated. Ryou nodded his assent.

"I do, but it's silly. I shouldn't bother," he said hastily.

"What?" Malik asked.

"No, it's… Just lay back down."

"What?"

Ryou's blush only got darker, because now he'd really messed things up. He'd piqued Malik's interest; now there was no way to get away without saying it. He shouldn't have even thought it. He was certain the moment he did, the happiness he'd found for himself in this moment would crash and fall apart, every bit as fragile as the glass ball from which he must have glimpsed such a fantastic dream.

In the meantime, Malik was still looking at him rather impatiently and waiting for him to answer his question already. Ryou sighed and looked down at his hands again. Malik's thigh rested nearby, tanned and beautiful. He really did not want to lose this.

"I wanted to know it… I could bite you. Mark you. Because you know, you did it to me." There were his fingers on his scar again, betraying his thoughts. He didn't need for Malik to tell him it was okay. Unlike with Marik, he didn't care how others would view it. He knew that it meant Malik cared enough about him to want to do it. It might now be love, but he didn't know it he would ever get that emotion from Malik. For now, he would take what he could get and let it be a reminder of when he'd had it.

Malik was looking at him strangely now. Not strangely in a bad way, but Ryou interpreted it as that and quickly jumped to his own defense. "I mean you don't have to of course, and it was a pretty silly idea so we should really just forget about it and lay—"

"Why wouldn't I let you do it?" Malik asked queerly. His brows furrowed, like he truly could not grasp what was going on inside this boy's head.

"Because you wouldn't want others seeing it and thinking less of you?" Ryou hazard a guess. Marik snorted

"I'd kick the person's ass," he scoffed. "Do it if you want to. I probably wouldn't just let anyone else do it, but you're far more interesting than them." Ryou tried not to blush too heavily at that. It wasn't love, but he was "interesting", and that definitely did mean something.

Encouraged by this response, Ryou lent down and placed his mouth against Malik's skin. He looked up one last time at the other to make sure that this was okay, then bit down harshly into skin. Immediately blood flowed into his mouth. He swallowed and let himself be embraced into that all-encompassing feel of Malik. It was even more intense this time, but he was not frightened by it. This was all Malik and he was going to take as much of him as he could for however long he could.

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Marik slid into Bakura again, but this time he was careful and slow. It was Bakura now who urged him to go faster, but Marik refused, not wanting to cause him any more injuries. Bakura growled and squirmed and did his best to impaled himself upon Marik's erection when Marik never did it himself. This time was as different as it could be from the last. Marik was the one who mostly remained immovable here, and Bakura did the majority of the work.

"Will you just fucking do something already? Marik, get over it! You're not going to hurt me!" Bakura bitched up at him.

"I already did!" Marik protested. It was the only thing he could think of now and he was so fucking nervous he was going to do it again, even if he didn't want to.

Bakura growled again and moved on the bed so that Marik slid completely out of him. He pushed Marik back down onto the bed and climbed atop him. Marik protested, but Bakura grabbed a hold of his member and with a sound of satisfied bliss, sank down upon it. It had to have hurt, Marik thought, but if it did, Bakura showed no signs of pain. He rode Marik hard. With his face flushed and his eyes half-closed and glowing, Marik realized that whatever he felt, he'd told Malik the truth about loving Bakura. He loved this man and he couldn't think of what he would have done if he'd hurt Bakura so badly in his rage that he'd just left.

"Bakura, Bakura," he called out.

"Not… now," Bakura responded with a low moan, sinking back down completely onto Marik.

No, it had to be now. If he didn't say it now he wouldn't later, and it would always be on his mind. "Bakura, I'm sorry. I didn't want to hurt you. I did, but I didn't. That wasn't me. I love you. I hate you, but I love you too, and I just don't want you to—" Bakura stopped moving long enough to lean down and shut him up with a kiss.

"You talk too much," he said, eyes glowing and looking deeply into Marik's. "I love you. You'll get over this and we'll be good again. I love you."

"Bakura…" Marik called again, but he didn't know what he wanted to say now. He was happy and he wanted to tell Bakura that, but all he could get out was the repetition of his name. As Bakura really began to work him, the calls of his name turned into moans, and then he was gripping tightly onto Bakura's hips to push him down further and uncaring if it hurt. Bakura's own noises told him that it did not and bit him to go faster. Marik obeyed and lost himself to the movement. Soon he forgot all about his anger and rage and who it was meant for and all he was was this moment.

00000

Isis and Rishid returned the next day to a house that wasn't quite as divided as the one they'd left. Ryou was ecstatic and Malik was Malik, though a Malik that was just a bit more sociable and more often than not found in some proximity to Ryou. Marik had mostly gotten over his anger, and whenever a fit of rage did strike him, Bakura managed to calm him down. When the eldest two Ishtars returned, no one asked any questions about where they'd been. But the way they both seemed to flinch at loud noises and complained of headaches were telling enough signs of where they'd gone.

"Before we have any discussion here, I just want to make one thing clear here. Rishid and I are not happy with this situation and how it has turned out," Isis announced. She had gathered all of them around the table in the dining room and looked at them steadily. Marik nodded; he hadn't thought one day would suddenly change their views. "But I also want to say that the two of us realize this is partially our own faults. If we both had listened just a bit more and had not been so judgmental, things might not have turned out the way they are now."

"We also want to thank Bakura for doing what he did to Marik. It may not have been the best of decisions, but it was the only option available to keep Marik here with us." Bakura too nodded, showing that he accepted this backwards sort of apology.

"Marik, your sister and I have decided that maybe you were right. There are some vampires out there who are not a threat to us, and we need to take the time to gather all of our information before acting recklessly. We want to apologize to you two, and let you know that you won't have to fear us," Rishid said, gaze directed at Bakura and Ryou.

"We just don't want there to be any more fighting. We want things to be able to go back to normal," Isis said.

"I don't think they can," Marik spoke up, frowning slightly. "I love the both of you and I'm glad to hear the decisions you both have made, but things can't stay the way they were anymore. Malik and I are vampires now. We'll be in danger if we stay here. After the other vampires and what happened to Mai…" He still could not speak about her without feeling heavy remorse. Where was she now? He knew that Isis and Rishid had disposed of her body as well as those of the other vampires from the warehouse, but where those bodies had gone, he did not know. There hadn't been much of a chance to ask with everything that had gone on, and no one seemed eager to bring the subject up, either.

"After all of that, other hunters will come here to find out exactly what happened," he continued. "They'll want to know. And if Malik and I aren't gone by the time that happens, it won't be easy to deal with." There was silence after that as everyone took in Marik's words.

"You can't leave," Isis said. "Neither of you can. I won't allow it."

"We have to," Marik insisted softly. "We can't stay here. And I may not have said it before, but I love Bakura. I want to be together with him. He's got a lot of thing to teach me about this new life, too." He elbowed Bakura's side and the vampire turned and snapped at him, making Marik chuckle. Isis looked from Marik to Malik, and he nodded too. Then, whether it was because she didn't have the patience for it or just because she didn't want to start another argument, she sighed and nodded.

"If you both feel that you have to leave, then I can't stop you. But please, please promise me that you'll be careful and keep in touch! And finish school! I don't want either of you turning into delinquents!" That produced some laughter from the Ishtars at the table, and though it wasn't easy and things were still tense, it was a start.

They spent a week at the house getting their things together and planning what would come next. Bakura and Ryou left sometimes to go to their own house and prepare, but they spent much of their time with the Ishtars. They talked about where they would go and what they would do after arriving (Isis was adamant that they go to school and Ryou agreed with her—it made it easier to blend in) and how often they would call and visit. Marik was far more excited about all of this than he thought he'd be. He had moved before and it had never been a big deal, but now he would be on his own in a completely different setting. It was nerve-wracking and thrilling all at once.

On the day they had agreed they would leave, Malik and Ryou snuck out of the house before the sun came up and were gone. Isis wasn't very happy about that, and promised his brother would hear of it the moment she called. Marik spent the day with his siblings, and when the sun fell Bakura had all of their belongings packed up in the car. Neither he nor Marik were quite sure how Malik and Ryou had gotten their things out without taking it, but apparently they had. What they had stolen was Marik's motorcycle, which angered him to no end. However, whenever he pictured his brother's grinning face with Ryou's behind the wheel, he found he couldn't remain irritated for too long.

"So where do you think they went?" Marik asked. He had said his goodbyes and now was on the road with Bakura and he found he couldn't be happier.

"Not wherever it was they told your sister they were going. Wherever they are, we'll meet up with them eventually. Why, you worried?" Bakura asked, sparing a look from the road long enough to tease him.

"Nah, I'm sure they'll be fine. They're weird together, but I think they work, you know?" Bakura nodded. He wasn't too thrilled by the relationship that had sprung up between them, but he agreed that it worked. "So where are we headed?"

"Wherever there isn't a lot of sun," Bakura answered. "The sooner we build up your immunity to it, the better. If Ryou's smart, he'll do the same with your brother." Marik hummed and nodded. Even the prospect of the painful endurance that awaited him could not dampen his spirits.

"And after that?"

"We go wherever the hell we want. It's not like we've got a limited amount of time or anything." And they both laughed, because they didn't.

Kay! Quickly quickly, because there's a lot I want to say here. First, the name I used for Marik's father Muta, it means "obeyed." I thought it fit. I also really liked the name Cecilia, I don't even know. (Is that the name of Pegasus's dead wife? I honestly was not thinking of her when I picked it.) Not like any of that really matter though. As for the sex scene, when I initially had this planned out in my head, dominant!Marik was a thing that did not happen in the fandom. Now it does. A lot. So I decided I still needed to make the scene all super awesome and stuff, and so wrote a double sex scene! Which was difficult. But hopefully I have successfully satisfied everyone's Deathshipping craving!

In general I'm quite pleased with this chapter. There were some things I really wanted to do that I just didn't get a chance to with the way it turned out, and I'm sure a bit more parts could have used better transition or explanation, but you know what? Last chapter and everything, so I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I will just be satisfied with my super corny ending where they ride off together into the night. And my crappy chapter title. Because without crappy chapter titles and silly endings, this just wouldn't be me.

But more important! This is the first multi-chap anything I have finished in literally FOREVER. I am constantly writing things and then I'll get sidetracked and not do anything with them. Half the reason I probably finished this is because I had reviewers who I knew were interested and wanted to see me continue the fic. So I just want to give a HUGE thank you to every single one of you! You are all really great inspiration to me and so kind with your words! I know it's a pain in the ass to actually review a chapter when it's so tempting to just read it and close the window, so I seriously appreciate that you all took the time out of your days. If I could hug you all I would! Instead, I shall just have to send my internet love!

So again, thank you all for reading and remaining interested in this fic even though it took me so long to update and finish, haha. I hope the end is satisfactory to all of you! Although Blood is over, there are still a few other Thiefshipping things I need to finish, so I'll still be around! But again (for like the millionth time) thank you, thank you, thank you!