Malik Ishtar was the kind of kid that carried a knife at all times.

He kept an Exacto blade hidden in the waistband of his jeans at school; kept a pocket knife shoved in his scuffed combat boot at home; kept a hunter's knife in his tan hands at play.

And he loved those knives. More than he loved the bands whose posters tattooed his walls, the scars up and down his coffee-hued arms, the twin brother that was all he had left of his family, even more the pale boy that let him toy with him all he wanted.

He was not a petty man; he didn't refuse to favorite the more lethal of his children, or just the ones that felt better in his fingers. He prized his Exacto blades over his pocket knives; his hunter knives over his Exacto blades.

And over even his hunter knives was the last remnant of his father, the thing that had perhaps started his friendships with these strips of metal, these strips of metal that were more than strips of metal!: his father's marine knife. The blade itself was reached from the tip of his clawed middle-finger to the horizontal scar at the base of his palm. The black, metal handle seemed to be molded perfectly to the curves of his right hand. It was built for him, not his wretched father - Malik deserved it more! He loved this particular blade more than he loved himself, more than he loved life itself.

These knives, these pointed pieces of grey, had become his family, his friends, his life.

And he wanted it no other way.

~*~

Bakura Touzoku was obsessed with blood.

He loved absolutely every single aspect of it. He loved the sight of the scarlet against his milk white skin, the smell as it broke through the newly formed seam, the coppery taste of it on his tongue. He loved to watch it run and loved to feel it slip between his thin fingertips; he loved to taste it tinge his saliva, to watch it glisten in the dim lights of his room and have it stain his sheets.

He loved to feel the poison drip from his body like a fractured oil tankard.

He had scars everywhere, except where people could see them, of course. He lined his ribs with crimson lines and prickling pain, painted the inside of his constantly-sleeved arms with gashes and shooting twinges.

His lover, Malik, knew this. Bakura knew he knew this, because Bakura had told him. And Bakura had told him because he trusted Malik. And Malik trusted him. Malik said he did. Malik trusted him enough to tell him of his knives. Malik trusted him enough to use those knives on him. Malik trusted him enough to confide in when he used one of them. Malik trusted him enough to tell him when he killed another person.

So why couldn't Malik trust him to just touch one of his children?

~*~

The fact that Malik Ishtar was straight as the blades he wielded didn't stop him from climbing through Bakura's window like a black widow. He dropped onto his bed, making not a sound as his boot-clad feet fell onto the ruffled black comforter.

Bakura's basement bedroom was the lowest, and therefore coldest, room in the house. Despite this fact, he kept the window just inches below his ceiling, the window just big enough for Malik to crawl through, constantly ajar.

Malik immediately shifted out of his crouching position, falling next to a barren-faced Bakura. Without a word, the tanner raised a sandy-blonde eyebrow. Without glancing at his taller comrade, he sighed. "It's nothing, Malik..."

Shrugging off the odd expression - Bakura was nothing to him, after all, just a toy that couldn't break, not even his favorite! - Malik bent close to the pale ear. "Sit up," He whispered, accented voice gruff.

Eager, Bakura did as told: he didn't disobey Malik. He just didn't. He sat up, hunching his scarred back slightly, as Malik refused to move from his spot by his ear. However, he whispered something less of a command than a promise: "...I'm going to make you bleed, Kura." Then a question. "You want that, right?"

"Yes."

Malik's right hand slithered under the hem of Bakura's baggy t-shirt, as the other twitched toward his right boot. Bakura leaned forward, connecting his lips to Malik's, and feeling his veins flood with burning lust. Malik leaned over him, yanking on his lower lip and demanding entrance.

The whitette parted his lips, following the taller Egyptian's order. Their tongues wrestled, coating each other with the other's saliva, reveling in the familiar taste; as the blonde leaned over the whitette.

"...Malik..." Bakura whispers, voice minuscule, stopping the Egyptian in his tracks. "...I..." He sucked in a shaky breath, deciding to, yes, finally put his worries, his jealousy, to ease.

"...Let me... touch Them."

His voice was hoarse and pleasing and even slightly sexual; but it failed to faze Malik.

"No." He immediately hissed the simply reply, narrowing his violet eyes at the impulsive whitette. Or, perhaps dim was the desired adjective of the moment. Bakura was well aware - well aware - that he was strictly prohibited to lay a finger on Them. This was one of the few rules Malik, a man of free-lance, had set in stone.

The other, of course, being never to get on his bad side.

"Do you..." Bakura's maroon eyes, those pitiful maroon eyes that only lost their playful and challenging gleam when presented with Malik Ishtar, those maroon eyes that now begged for attention that was simply unable to be given, rolled sideways to the sun-kissed man. Malik could hear him swallow, as his courage peaked.

"...Do you love them more than me...?"

The uke's voice cracked with his bleeding need to know, and with his despairity at how reliable he was on this man that favored scraps of metal over him. He who threw himself at Malik's feet without consideration, he who took blame and beatings and venting and so much more-

But Bakura digressed.

He blinked away the small threat of tears as the seme stayed in sub-zero silence, as seconds packed full of Bakura's vulnerability ticked by, as Malik had the audacity to stare blankly, boldly, into the beseeching eyes of his toy. Seconds stumbled by - or maybe hours? - and still the Egyptian stayed stonily taciturn. However Bakura, still pumped on courage like crystal Meth, cried out:

"Answer me!"

"I don't take orders from you."

The voice was quiet, but venomous. It sent a chill down Bakura's scarred spine, a regretful chill made of broken glass.

And his courage plummeted, shattering to shards as it hit the bottom of his knotted stomach.

It took as much time for Bakura's brain to subconsciously process the need to blink for Malik to have the blade of an Exacto pressed to the red-ringed, fair skin of his neck. His words were laced with venom and built of malice as he clarified, words none but a viper-like his.

"You listen to me."

Suddenly, the maroon-eyed whitette felt something break. Something that had been crumbling since the very day he met the infamous, alluring Malik Ishtar. Something that had been nurtured and healed and taped back together by lies and denial, every single day.

As the knife dug into his skin, forming a deliciously painful line of crimson from his wind-pipe, Bakura whispered, quiet as the sound of splitting skin:

"...I bet everyone else would..."

This, of course, is how these things always play out. One accidental word, one statement that slipped through the boundaries of lips, could easily cause an avalanche that took everyone under its scarlet-spotted white wrath.

Malik's damn-near frozen-over heart pulsed once with minute fear, the next with rage so concentrated his heart caught fire. This boy was a toy! How dare he talk to him as if they were, in any way, equal? First a challenge; and now a threat?

As always, obeying his impulses, Malik pressed onto the blade of the Exacto, farther into Bakura's skin, sending a searing pain through his throat like frozen fire. The weapon-crazy Egyptian crawled on top of the now squirming, slightly compunction-filled whitette, placing his knees on his shoulders as they fell back onto a mattress by now spotted with so much blood it could easily be none but a pattern by now.

"Was that a threat?"

Bakura yanked his eyes away from the now screaming Master, quaking slightly; and took in the sights of his room. The posters, so many posters of smirking screamo bands that the blue walls were hidden completely; the white tile coated in stray clothes and even a few hidden knives; the pitifully small television; and the single lightbulb from the ceiling fan, that cast a dingy atmosphere over it all.

But then Malik grasped Bakura's pale cheeks between his tan fingers, yanking his eyes toward him, forcing him to establish eye contact. "Look at me as I speak!" Bakura nodded slowly, eyes tearing once more.

Had he really brought this man into his haven...?

He wished he could say this was new, that this was a side of his lover, his Master, his only, he had never seen before. But as he had never personally angered this man - he had seen what happened to those who did...

"No-no!" He squeaked. "Mali, I would nev-"

Before his hysterical sentence could reach completion, he was cut short as if... by a knife.

"Shut. Up."

Bakura could feel the anger. Pulsating. White-Hot. Growing.

The knife pushed slightly deeper into his skin, and he writhed; the pain racing through his body like a stampede of horses was too luscious to be a punishment. He was alive, he knew it. He was alone with Malik. Malik, who was the only one who would ever love him. Malik, who cared enough to punish him. To punish him in the best way fathomable.

And perhaps his 'Lover' noticed - or perhaps simply remembered - this love of pain, for soon he plunged the knife deeper into his skin, finally earning what he was aiming for, something that before would be impossible, something that before never would have crossed either mind as remotely thinkable: Bakura saw pain as it really, truly was. Not beautiful nor alluring nor breathtakingly wondrous; but horrifying and dreadful and agonizing.

Malik grinned wider at this realization, as the whitette's face contorted in more than slight discomfort. He ripped the blade from his neck to his stomach, splitting the black t-shirt down the middle. The gash immediately flooded with blood, dripping down his chest, neck and stomach like sweat.

Of a... Of something of a lucid impulse, the Egyptian tore the razor so far into Bakura's stomach he nearly lost the blade. The screams grew so loud and berserk it was all he heard;

And it made him smile.

He never could decide which aspects he loved most - the screams, the blood, the thrill of the kill itself? It was all so inexplicably gorgeous it made his spine tingle.

He turned the blade, before yanking it out. Grumbling, he reached for his other boot - before he was interrupted. "M... M-Mali..." Bakura's voice was small, and begging. "P... Please... I'm so... cold..." Between pants, the now even paler victim could hardly form a sentence.

This had no affect on the taller but disgust.

"Shut up." He hissed once more, ignoring the plea and finally reaching for and pulling out his item of desire:

His father's marine knife. His baby.

With a quick jerk of his wrist, knees still on his shoulders, Malik plunged his best friend into his favorite toy.

And the blood spewed! Droplets of blood sprayed, splattering posters and the television; showering Malik. It coated his tan, twisted face scarlet and left him with its sweet taste on his tongue. His smile grew as he extended his overlong tongue and licked his lips.

But soon he scolded himself: he had hut the artery too soon. Too quickly Bakura would-

But the whitette proved Malik senselessly wrong, as he groaned, quiet as the sound of skin being split. The maroon eyes were wide, but unseeing. He was still alive, still completely alive, but in a state of such pain it was all he was able to register.

Just as Malik preferred.

But rather than let him bleed him bleed out, Malik followed his bloodlust and acted instinctively. He stabbed into the helpless boy, over and over, ripping straight through him, to the mattress that kept them both aloft, even as the near-silent moans and even bloodflow stopped.

...His toy was dead.

With that realization, he rose, staring down at the open-eyed corpse and the ocean of blood and the death itself with complete serenity. Nothing about this scene made it unique; save the identity of the dead.

Knees on narrow shoulders still, Malik found himself smirking as his heartrate slowed to normal. He owned his toys; then and now and always. This proved it, so much more than the way he had clung when he was still alive.

He stood then, smile not faltering by growing! Oh, how Godlike he felt after the kill. How bonded he had felt with his knives!

He stood, feet on either side of Bakura's white head. Taking one last look at his toy, he turned away. Climbing out the window like a black widow, he frowned slightly as the frigid November wind cut at his blood-drenched skin. He danced across the leaf-blanketed ground, the crunches his feet made when trampling the leaves hidden skillfully in the wind,

As he fled the scene, one seldom thought flowed through his twisted head:

Hm... I guess all can be broken...?