Never Rid of You

Spoilers: Some.
Pairings: Malik x Mariku
Lemon in this chapter: I feel like being an absolute pervert. Heavy shounen-ai and just twisted kinkyness.
Chapter: (5/8?)

This is progress! Chapter five. *Nod, nod, snuggles new Malik plush* Spectacular news indeed. I'd like to say that writing this fic has made me appreciate Mariku far more than I would have thought possible. >>! Gods, he was such a goofball in episode 120... *Gigglesnort* Anywho.

I'll be putting a break when the 'lemon' starts, so anyone who's actually sensitive can skip.

....And to those people: you're here on aff.net.... why?!

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yu-Gi-Oh! nor the characters involved in this work of fiction. This has been written without motive for profit or violation of copyrighted material, and the writer has only created this work for personal amusement to be shared with others. Yay. That saves my ass. Again.

On with the fic!!


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Chapter Five: Never Without You

"The Rod is ours, you know..." Me murmured to the boy whose head was in his lap. "You have to take it, sometime."

A light shake of his little blond head, nuzzling lightly at the other's thigh. They shared a spot on the black stairs that led in to the water; Me sat on the outside with only his legs going into the pool. Malik was curled over the next batch of steps, his body for the most part slipped between the other form's legs. Clothes were only a formality of the real world. As they saw it, if it was only them in such a safe place, how could they need them?

"...It feels like I fall out of myself, when I do. I don't like it..."

Silvery hues, always only half aware to his surroundings, watched the other in a notch of sympathy.

"Weak One," he pleaded quietly, the velvet knife of his tongue hard at work to make the other shiver as much as possible for hearing him, "if you do not take it, how do you ever hope to stand up to the Pharaoh? His powers are that of the gods themselves."

Even a thing as basic as talking to Malik warmed his senses. Me noticed the way he always blushed, the pink in his ears, how much warmer his skin became, every time they talked. Maybe he could read a book to him, and then the small boy could fall asleep in that wondrous feeling.

...The Twelve Night Hours*. Yes, a perfect book to read to him.

As fingers combed through the softer tresses of his lighter, weaker half, Me contemplated just how exactly to separate the boy from everything he knew. Ways to spoil him with wickedness. Taint his innocence in such delicious ways that made his senses throb to think about. Nails grazed through his white gold hair, eliciting a small groan of resignation from Malik.

Turning his gaze down to the boy in his arms, between his legs, he had to stop and wonder. This part of him craved attention, was tortured and his essence twisted so much that now, he himself could exist with him. Ever since...

"...that night."

Over flushed cheeks did Malik peer up to him, darkened amethyst hues barely able to portray his curiosity towards the break in their quiescence. "...Hn?"

Me adjusted smokey lilac hues away from the intoxicating sight of his weaker half being so perfectly vulnerable. To continue watching him would leave him inclined to... well...

...He didn't know exactly. Kill him? ...Far from it. But to love that weakness? ...A thought he considered appalling. Instead, as he watched the far wall and the way oil light danced across it, he did his best to appear bored. "That night," he continued in throated whisper, "he initiated you as a tomb keeper."

The thought did not bring pleasant feeling to Malik, the smaller blond boy already cringing at the potential for where this discussion could go. Releasing a low whine in reluctant imperative to remain where he was, he chose to bury his face into Me's abdomen rather than slip away into the waters.

"...You hated that you were alone." He could feel the mashed features of his other half moving against his belly in a feeble nod, so he continued. "...I was there for it. I... was with you."

For the longest time their only exchange was silence. Only the low hiss of the flames on their stands kept them company, the air thick and hot from their soul's tension. Through the dull patter of his pulse in his ears, Me could feel the pulse of Malik's temple near his naval.

The darker gheist of the pair moved, hands coming to the arms twined around him, plucking the other boy's weight off. Ins of of willing him away, as Malik was expecting, he only turned the smaller boy around, leaving him to sit on the steps with his back in full, rightful view of the other. Studying them with hazy orbs, he could feel his own tingle. He had been there, for every moment of the screaming.

Hours that had gone by, just imagining the coat of red on his tender form... Thrown under the overwhelming tow of screams and wails he'd bathed in, and at this very moment could taste in fresh memory. Where Malik abhorred that brilliant, ruby life now... Oh, Me shivered at the hope of seeing it again. If he couldn't have that, he could at least graze his fingers along the scars on the other's back that had once been only torn flesh.

Just like his own... As he admired the grooves of tradition that was spread across the other's back, he could feel Malik blanch from the contact. Even if this place did not exist in the world of real, it was real enough for him. This touch was as genuine as anything his siblings could instill, large eyes slowly falling shut.

Between them was a link of empathy that went far beyond that of which any pair of humans could hope to know. It wasn't two humans; it was two halves of the very same. That in itself was a comforting thought to the boy, the only reason he wasn't ashamed of the inscription's existence being scrutinized by the other.

Digits worked their way over Osiris, and Malik could the the button of his other's nose brushing along the valley of his spine. For it he could only release a heated sigh, his head hanging to leave the tips of sun silk strands to breach the waters and distort the nothingness beyond his feet. Me's fingers continued to drag in deliberate weight along the markings that had been carefully inscribed, his t bru brushing the bottom line of the Sky Dragon's prison as his lips brushed the topmost arch of the ankh.

On purpose, the darker half let his voice escape in smoldering breath across the dampened skin, leaving Malik to shudder in the wake. "I was the only one with you. We have only each other. With the Rod, we could create an army to crush the Pharaoh, and make him pay for all his wrongs... Repay him for this courtesy of hurting us... Hurting you. Oh, he has gained such an enemy with his stupidity, and we must make that clear to him."

Only -I- have that right... He is mine alone to damage. I'm the only one that deserves to...


...I gain purpose, in his pain.

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"Rishid... I'm so worried about him..."

"Mistress Isis, please. I'm sure that all will be for the best." Of course, it was the eldest Ishtar sibling's job to keep spirits up. On the inside, though, he too feared for Malik's well being.

"I believe... that the presence within Malik, that night... It was with him long before then..." Midnight hues lowered to the stone table as her fingers nervously ran over the Tauk rested high on her sternum.

Hazel eyes drifted away from his own folded hands, taking in the er.... suddenly ostentatious description of the wall. "...Indeed."

"...His Darkness could unmake the waking world."

A low child's whine emerged from the doorway, snapping both pairs of heads in the direction of a barely awake Malik. "I'm hungry..." He was still rubbing sleep from his eyes, shuffling over towards his elder brother and taking seat beside him.

They both ignored the fact he was only in the sheet wrapped on his hips, leaving the scars on his back in full view.

"Master Malik, are you alright? You look ill." The young man tipped a large hand into his little brother's hair, scooping it out of his eyes so Isis could lean over the tabletop and place knuckles to his brow.

She blinked, calmly rising to her feet and escaping to the fire in its pit so she could begin on something for him. "It's just a light fever. Some soup should fix that right up. Are you hungry, Malik?"

With a light click, the gold Sceptor of the Pharaoh's tomb was settled upon the table. Rishid's throat was suddenly dry. His baby brother, his master, now had different eyes. Not the eyes that had pleaded with his sister to let him go to the surface, or the eyes that had begged of him to be spared from becoming a tomb keeper. ...They were hollow, plotting.

"Starving," the boy responded after a moment, fidgeting with himself and the twist of sheets around his legs.

People tended to fidget when they were in sticky cloth.