A/N: This really, really isn't for the faint of heart - it's really not much more than plotless, violent sex, but it gets downright gory at points, and has one - no, two - character deaths. I based it mostly on episode 93/volume 27, and what these might have looked like with more hatesex and less card games. Also, as info for everyone who lives under a rock/only knows the dub version - there's a knife hidden in the Sennen Rod.

A fraction. A few milimeters, a hair-fine difference in balance, that was all. There was nothing more holding him to this damned wall, nothing but the breath more power that the grave keeper's darkside possessed.

He had felt it at the back of his mind, had felt the profound shock going through the original Malik at the death of his servant-brother-protector. Now, he was still there, locked somewhere within him, not willing to live on at this point but neither willing to die just yet. Yami no Bakura could sense him, like a sentient itch, but for now he was shocked into silence.

That was the least of his problems at the moment.

Mariku was standing just a step away from him, an insufferably smug and satisfied expression on his face, „What a pity that this had to go so fast, with no time for me to lose. But I promise that we will have fun together for much longer, soul-thief."

Oh no you don't, you bastard!

He strained against the bonds, completely in vain. The only purpose it served was to show him how close he was to breaking free, how he could almost, almost make it. Mariku was watching him struggle with the same infuriating smile, which only grew wider and brighter and madder the more furious the tomb robber became. Idly, he cleaned the last of the blood from the Sennen rod's dagger with the edge of his cloak.

Only when his shoulders hurt like hell from trying to break free, and his mind ached doubly so, did Mariku press one hand to his chest, still laughing, long fingers spread over the Ring, and pushed him back into the wall until the metal was pressing into his ribs painfully.

„What should I do – should I let you choose your poison? That way, you'd still have some control..."

Bakura snarled at him through the curtain of his hair, „Go to hell!"

Now Mariku was so close they were standing toe-to-toe, close enough for him to see the gleam in the other spirit's wide eyes, close enough to smell the scent of blood and ashes - „We're already there." - close enough for him to feel the words breathed against his lips, so softly that the blade buried in his side came as a complete shock.

The Ring's spirit turned his head away and hissed through his teeth, followed by a stream of archaic curses – the strike had been calculated not to kill, but to hurt. It bypassed all major blood vessels, but he could feel the point tearing through muscle tissue and scraping against his hipbone.

Mariku twisted the knife around slowly, expanding the wound. Gritting his teeth against the pain, the thief twisted his head away until his neck ached, not wanting to look into the other's eyes.

But Mariku wasn't having any of that. Tangling his free hand's fingers into Bakura's hair, he jerked his head around to face him and held it there while the knife slipped out of the nonfatal but nonetheless painful wound. Tsking at the tomb robber's rambling threats and curses, he pulled at the mess of white hair, bringing their faces closer together.

Bakura cringed and clenched his eyes shut as Mariku's tongue stretched out obscenely long to lick the sweat and tears of pain and frustration from his cheeks. The thief felt a stirring at the base of his spine, caused by the heat and wetness, slow languid strokes over his temples and eyelids and finally his lips, and it only enraged him more.

„Look at me." he felt the words spoken against his mouth as much as he heard them, but didn't respond, didn't comply.

„Look at me!" the command was repeated with more vehemence, and when than failed to have any effect other than a growl rising in the thief's throat, Mariku pushed two of his fingers deep into the wound in the other's side.

Bakura let out a choked gasp, eyes snapping open to look right into a face painted with twisted glee, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

„Look at how nice I'm being to you." Mariku said cruelly, scissoring his fingers and drawing them in and out in some twisted parody of intimacy.

Eyes growing wider still and face twisted into a pained grimace, Bakura bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming.

The burn and stretch in his side was impossible to ignore, and it only kept growing, but with it grew an amount of pleasure that was fractional at first, but undeniable as well, in a way even worse than the pain as it pronounced the humiliation and disgrace even more.

„I look forward to seeing how long you will last." Mariku informed him, adding a third finger and chuckling when Bakura tried to squirm away but stayed stuck exactly where he was, a strangled sound coming from his lips.

„Ahh, what is it? Do you want some...?" with that, he pulled his fingers free. Bakura could feel the blood soaking into his clothes and running down his side. Mariku held up his sticky, red-dripping fingers, looking at them as if mesmerized for a moment. Then his lips twisted into a smile, and he stroked them across Bakura's face, smearing blood on his cheeks and temples like some kind of demented fingerpaint. Bakura stayed stubbornly silent, only grimacing as his face and neck grew stickier. He had to bite down on his lip again when Mariku started to lick his own fingers clean of the rest of the blood, his other hand still tangled in Bakura's hair, forcing the thief to look at him.

„Sweeter than I thought...but of course, the blood is only stolen, right?"

He moved closer again, and Bakura nearly tore his own hair out trying to move his head to the side, but Mariku grasped his chin with his other hand, forcing his head to stay in place.

Bakura clenched his eyes shut again as he felt lips against his own, and then a hot, wet tongue slipping into his mouth. He felt the grip on his chin tightening, trying to force his teeth open. Already unstable reason slipping even more, he opened his mouth willingly to admit the slick heat. He felt disgusted with himself for letting this happen, for letting himself get captured and for his struggles weakening him, but the way in which Mariku explored the inside of his mouth made the heat in him rise to an unbearable level.

„Come on – admit – that – you love this." Mariku said inbetween wet, harsh kisses. Bakura met his lips as much out of a need to keep his mouth occupied and keep himself from answering as from distracting himself from the sharp, sticky feeling in his side.

„So quiet and stubborn, I'll have to change that." his lips now somewhere in the vicinity of Bakura's collarbone, Mariku started to unzip the thief's pants to look for an answer to his own question.

For a senseless moment he was almost glad about being stuck to this damned wall, as it kept him from pushing forward and thus disgracing himself even further. Gods Mariku's fingers were hot-

„Enjoying yourself, soul-thief?"

Before he could formulate an answer to that question that A: was negative, B: sounded convincing and C: contained as many instances of the words „Fuck you!" as possible, Mariku opened up a cut diagonally across his chest, tracing after the blade with his tongue.

„Gah – fuck you!" at least that had come out right, but by now there were too many sensations to ignore and they were making it much harder to focus on anything, and he was going to lose all self-control he hadn't yet let go of if Mariku kept this up – and why would the other spirit stop when he was having so much fun?

He wanted to protest, wanted to choke back the sounds threatening to spill out, but the cuts only made it more difficult. He wasn't going to cry out, he would not give the bastard that satisfaction as well, he would not scream in pain and he would not scream in pleasure if it killed him.

That resolve held out right until the moment he felt Mariku drive his tongue deep into the wound in his side.

He only stopped screaming when his throat was too raw to keep going, and even then he could not place the sensation that had made him scream, because even though the pain had been near-unbearable, it hadn't been the only thing coursing through his body.

At this point he wasn't thinking anything more coherent than a solid string of expletives, mouth hanging open and eyes staring ahead glassily, and just a breath away from giving in to the conflicting sensations when a cold shock of fear went through him as he felt the kinfe's blade between his legs, just short of slicing open his femoral artery. He balled his fists, trying not to shake, and after a breathless second found that he could ball his fists. Mariku's control was fading.

Bakura might have been as far from reason as the moon was from the sun, but if you were this far gone into irrationality you might very well come out on the other side.

That was why he did not try to pull away immediately, but instead stayed still, hoping like hell that Mariku didn't get it into his insane head to cut into something that was in one or another way vital.

„Your voice sounds so pretty when you scream."

Breathing shallowly, Bakura tried not to feel relief too early, lest it be in vain, and desperately trying not to let anything show. He also had to work very hard to keep his head and not let himself be distracted by the rough hot hands and hotter tongue moving over his pale flesh.

He would have to wait for the right moment to break free fully or risk being injured even worse. But looking into the other spirit's face, he thought he could see why his control had started slipping.

Mariku was definetely feeling the excitement himself, eyes gleaming madly and blood and spit running down his chin. It only loosened his grip the merest fraction, but that fraction would be enough. It had to be.

„I wonder," he said, slowly coming back up and carving sharply across Bakura's exposed ribbones, hot fingers dancing over the pale skin, „should I kill you before you get your release? Or," he continued, the knife rising further, up the grave robber's jawline, hovering in front of his face for a moment, finally brushing over the blue tracery of veins on one wrist, „should I get you off and bleed you out at the same time?"

One steadying breath, and Bakura wrenched the Sennen Rod out of Mariku's hand by the blade, cutting deeply into his own palm, and stepped sideways and away.

The look of profound shock on Mariku's face was something he would treasure for eternity, as was the gasp that the other spirit let out when he was slammed into the floor hard, and found he stayed stuck right where he was, unable to move.

It would have been reasonble to slit his throat right then and there, it would have been reasonable not to take any risks. But as was already established, Bakura wasn't the most reasonable of people.

The expression on Mariku's face was an unreadable mess of too many different emotions all mixed together. Bakura stood over him, feeling the weight of the gold rod in his hands for the first time, and then crouched down until they were face to face.

„There's one problem with that," the white spirit said, grinning madly and idly beginning to cut the clothes from Mariku's body,"you can't kill me."

Both hands wrapped around the gold rod, which was warm from Mariku's touch, he sank the blade into the other's stomach and began dragging it sideways, putting his entire weight into the motion.

Mariku's terrible lovely eyes had begun to slide shut, and thick veins stood out against his neck and jawline. The bastard was clearly enjoying himself.

„And now is the time," Bakura began, grinding their hips together and hissing at the feeling of skin meeting skin,"for me to ask you the same question. Should I let you finish," at these words he moved his hips again,"before I finish you?" and twisted the blade around, producing a noise – clearly one of pleasure – from Mariku.

Now, that was certainly fascinating. It was the first time he'd ever met someone who was even more fucked up than himself.

Mariku had clearly gone far beyond the point of coherency, so instead of waiting for an answer, Bakura slicked the other spirit's hard member up with their mixed blood and moved his hips into position. Sliding down, he revelled in the stretching, burning feeling, and simultaneously dug his fingers into the deep wound he'd made.

„Aaahh-" the dark spirit's eyes slid fully shut, sweat rolling over his skin and making his wild hair stick to his forehead.

Teeth bared in a feral grin, Bakura threw back his head, back arched, and started bouncing roughly.

He'd be sore later on, and the wounds across his chest and sides already hurt like hell, but right now he couldn't really give a fuck about that, being filled like this felt too goddamned fantastic for him to think too much about anything at all.

All of the pain had only gotten him more excited, and it was with considerable effort that he got out, between gasps and rhythmically squeezing his fingers buried deep inside the other's hot, slick stomach, „Any – any - last words – aaah!" he broke off as surge of pleasure went through him, as he shifted his angle and started moving even faster,"any last words, you – you bastard?"

Mariku opened his pain- and lust-darkened violet eyes blearily, with obvious difficulty. His expression was far away, mouth open and tongue hanging out, drool running down his chin. He let out a short, wet-sounding laugh, too far gone to care much about his situation.

Bakura figured that was all he was going to get, and besides, the imminent explosion in his own body wasn't going to be held off much longer. He positioned the knife between Mariku's ribs, pressing down slowly and tightening his inner muscles a few times at the same time.

„Gah!" with a violent shudder through his entire body, Mariku's eyes snapped open and he started convulsing violently.

Hissing through his teeth, Bakura lowered his head to meet the other's eyes, their gazes locked.

When he felt hot release filling him and setting his own climax off, he pushed down the blade with one violent motion, straight and true into the other's heart. He rode out his entire orgasm while watching the glow in the other's eyes slowly die.

When the last aftershocks had left him and he was nearly sure his own heart would stop as well from pounding so hard, he climbed off the other's still body. He slumped to the floor, having to rest for a moment before he could do anything else. Before he lost consciousness, with another smile twisting his lips, he stole a last kiss from the other's blood-stained, still wet and warm mouth. Against that mouth he said, in a voice that was a mere hoarse whisper from all the screaming,
„I win, Mariku."