Second Chances

The Egyptian midday sun beat down upon the small village of Kul Elna without mercy, and not a soul was to be found in its abandoned streets or alleyways. A peaceful silence had fallen over the little settlement that hung heavier in the air than the heat itself.

"Bastard! I'll cut you throat to stomach!"

Bakura's shouts shattered the sleepy slumber of the village as he frantically ran after his playmate. Sweat was pouring off his brow as he dipped his head down and pushed himself further trying to make up the distance. Just in front of him he could see Hannu do the same, his arms frantically scrambling as if he was trying to pull himself through the air whilst one hand maintained its tight grip on the stolen prize. His uncontrollable laughter floated back to Bakura's ears, but it rang at a higher pitch betraying his nerves. However, he was wise to be nervous because Bakura was going to murder him.

Spurred on, Bakura threw all his strength into his legs, his bare feet slapping off the dusty road and throwing him further forward. He reached out his arm towards the boy and his fingertips just brushed against the fabric of his tunic, but annoyingly he couldn't grasp the material. Hannu give a squeal of excitement and spun round to the side, stopping his progress dead. Bakura ran straight past him and attempted to dig his heels into the ground but he only succeeded in kicking up a storm of dust as he fought against his own momentum. Instead, he managed to upset his delicate balance and fall flat upon his face in the dirt. He looked up just in time to see Hannu duck for shelter in the animal shed. A dead end.

With the determination of a hunter Bakura jumped back up to his feet, wiping the dust from his skinned knee, and very carefully, and deliberately, walked to the shed as he stalked his prey. He stepped inside, taking a moment to appreciate the cool shade it provided as he kept his ears pricked, listening for any sound that might rise above the noisy bleats of the goats.

Hannu had already lost this; there were very limited places to hide in here and he wouldn't escape Bakura. Even if Hannu was the taller of the two, Bakura refused to let him push past. He could hear small lungs pant for breath and smiled to himself, as he approached the back of the cramped barn, keeping his footfall soft. He had to be hiding behind the manger at the back. Bakura drew closer.

The sounds of Hannu's pants stopped and Bakura was certain that the boy was holding his breath. Grinning he stood before the manger and threw his leg up to kick it over. The manger fell on its side to reveal… nothing.

Crunch.

Bakura spun around to see Hannu right behind him, chewing noisily on a large mouthful of the stolen fig as a trail of its juice dribbled down his chin.

"Traitor," Bakura cried, leaping on top of the boy, his arms about his waist as he used what little weight there was to his young body to throw them both to the ground. Hannu lost his grip of the fruit which rolled along the floor to be forgotten as Bakura fell onto his chest and restrained each of his wrists holding them steady while Hannu laughed nervously and struggled to free himself.

"Stop, stop, Bakura," he begged. "You're hurting me."

"You should have thought about that before you stole from me," Bakura threatened. "I'll have your eye for this."

Hannu stopped his struggle to fix his friend with an uncertain stare. "My eye? What do you want with an eye?"

"To teach you some respect," Bakura snapped back. "Or maybe I'll take your tongue, and finally silence you."

"If you do my father will reward you," Hannu said, his shoulders still shaking with laughter. "He's been threatening to do that all my life."

Bakura continued to fix him with a stony stare, and put all his efforts into maintaining it, but the corners of his mouth started to twitch and he felt his own shoulders shake. Taking advantage of the weakness, Hannu threw his arms back above his head, taking Bakura's with him, which forced Bakura's face closer to his own. Hannu sat up to lick his cheek.

"Ugh, you're disgusting," Bakura howled releasing his grip on his arms and sitting up to wipe at his face. "Why is there so much spit? Was your father a camel?"

With his arms now free, Hannu sprung on him and threw Bakura onto his back, rolling on top of him and grabbing his wrists instead.

"That was a dirty trick."

"You have to play dirty if you want to win," Hannu said his face just inches from Bakura's.

"Don't lick me again. You're probably all diseased and poxy," Bakura complained wiggling pathetically under his captor's grasp. In all honesty he could probably escape from this if he put his mind to it, but he didn't see any urgent need to pursue freedom; he felt oddly comfortable in Hannu's grip.

"If you ask it, I won't," Hannu promised and rubbed noses with Bakura gently before bringing his forehead to rest against his own. Suddenly the humour of the moment was gone and Bakura's rage had all burnt out. On impulse, Bakura bobbed his head down a little to reach his mouth. The kiss was brief and as sweet as the taste of fig that still clung to Hannu's lips, and all too soon Bakura let his head fall back wondering at his action.

Hannu looked down at him curiously and then flopped dramatically onto his back, lying beside him amongst the straw and goat dung. Bakura's heart was racing as he considered the moment, it had been nice to share some gestures of affection with Hannu and the two had always been closer than brothers but something felt different this time. He threw an arm over his face to hide his expression and block out the scene. He was just entered his ninth year and so far he was not impressed. Things only seemed to become needlessly complicated from here on out and everything was changing. But things were not supposed to change with Hannu, never with him.

"This place is so dull," Hannu moaned, breaking the awkward silence that had formed with his familiar complaints. "Why do you want to stay here?"

"Because it's home," Bakura said simply. "And it's much safer than everything else out there."

"But don't you want to explore," Hannu pushed, nudging him gently in the side with his elbow. "I want to explore and see everything that the travellers have seen. Do you remember that man who rested here one night. The guy with one arm? He saw a real life sphinx, with a woman's head and everything. You'd never see one if you lived here all your life."

"Why do you want to meet a sphinx so badly? It's only going to ask you a riddle, and if you can't answer it'll kill you," Bakura said, rolling onto his side to fix Hannu with a cruel grin. "You're so dumb it would probably just eat you alive on the spot."

"It didn't eat the one-armed man when he couldn't answer the riddle," Hannu reminded him, rolling onto his side as well so that they were face to face. "He praised her beauty and she let him go."

"Only after she took his arm."

"Well, I'll do a better job," Hannu decided. "I shall sing an ode inspired by her and she'll let me go intact."

"If you sing, she'll only eat you faster."

Hannu punched his shoulder but the two smiled at each other.

"Why won't you come explore the world with me?" Hannu asked. "We'd see everything together and if one of us gets into trouble then the other can rescue him and we'd visit exotic lands and taste strange foods and steal all sorts of treasures, not just from graves. And we could see the ocean, the actual ocean. Imagine water that goes on as far as you can see, and deeper than a house." His eyes were full of wonder and dancing but Bakura didn't care for the things he was describing, he was instead hypnotised by the glorious shade of brown to be found in his irises. Why travel half the world when such treasures were on his doorstep already?

"Come on, where's your sense of adventure, Bakura?"

"I like it here," Bakura repeated. "My mother is here, and my father, and my brothers and… what if I can't remember the way back?"

"You'll always remember the way back home, you've clung to it all your life," Hannu said with a smirk. "And your family wouldn't be there on your travels but I would. I'd be very sad if you weren't there too. And it's not like we're leaving tomorrow, this is when we've grown and we're tall and strong. Why wouldn't you want to leave then?"

Bakura furrowed his brow as he noticed that the scene had disappeared and reality gave way to confusion. He could still feel warmth, although it did not come from the scorching sun this time, and he could hear the gentle sounds of movement, although it was not Hannu making them. Hannu was long dead, along with Bakura's mother, father and brothers, all destroyed, and now only to be resurrected in his memories and dreams.

Bakura opened his eyes reluctantly and stared up at the ceiling. He never knew what to do with pleasant Kul Elna dreams. The nightmares at least fit with the pain that dominated his memories of the past and he knew to push them as far from his mind as soon as possible upon awakening, but these memories of a happy childhood were jarring. He'd once smiled all those millennia ago in Egypt; he'd had a family and friends and hopes for a future and it was so tempting to shut his eyes tightly against reality and try to return to that blissful oasis of memory to have a second chance at that conversation. It would be so easy to slip back into the world of dreams, to tell Hannu that of course he would travel with him when the time comes and watch the infectious joy spread over his face. But what good would that do? It wasn't real; it was only a shoddy, temporary fix at best.

He sighed and rolled his shoulder blades, stretching out his back and dropping an arm behind his head as he glanced to the left side of the bed and saw Marik tapping at his phone, his perfect body drowning in one of Bakura's, or to be more accurate Ryou's, baggy t-shirts. He watched contently as Marik scrolled over some internet site or other, his face full of stony concentration as he worked. Bakura allowed himself a small smile; Marik made the pain a little easier to bear.

The odds had certainly been stacked against this relationship in the grand scheme of things, so many little specific and unlikely events all had to line up just for him and Marik to even exist within the same time period, let alone the countless choices that had led to their paths crossing. If Bakura had decided that Ryou wasn't worthy and had burned his soul out or if Marik had been able to contain his rebellious streak and fulfilled his destiny to remain buried underneath the ground with the dead then they'd have just passed each other by and never known of the other. Bakura felt himself become dizzy at the thought. No wonder people chose to believe in fate; it was much easier.

Marik spun his head around as if sensing the gaze upon him and his neutral expression was suddenly informed by great joy as he saw that Bakura was finally awake.

"Bakura, you're finally awake!" he cheered dropping back onto the pillows beside him and holding up his phone. "Look."

He looked and was surprised to see the weather forecast. Bakura was instantly unsettled; he had been expecting some yaoi site or an internet meme, but a weather app was just a little too mundane.

"Marik why are you looking up the weather? We live in a tomb, it doesn't affect us."

"But did you see it?" he pressed, holding the phone's screen closer to Bakura's face until all he could see was glare and pixels, the meaning now lost to him. "It's a storm. A lightning storm!"

"Marik, we live underground—"

"So we'll go above ground."

"—so it… wait…what?" Bakura spun around onto his side and looked Marik over carefully as he returned to poking at the phone's screen. "You want to go out in the lightning storm?"

"Of course. We can't see it from down here," Marik said as if his words made logical sense. "And I found out about this tower café and they have a balcony that you can see the Nile from so we should go there soon before the good seats are taken."

"You want to sit outside?"

"Yes."

"Up high?"

"Yes."

"In the middle of a lightning storm?"

"Don't worry, we're not going to get wet," Marik assured him as he held up a picture of the balcony café on the phone's screen. "See, they have a veranda."

"A veranda isn't going to protect us from the spears of raw electricity shooting down from the sky."

Marik put the phone away and looked at Bakura was great curiosity. "You're not scared of storms, are you Bakura?"

"No, I just don't see the point of needlessly increasing our chances of electrocution when we are perfectly safe here."

"Because it's fun, Fluffy," Marik enthused, sitting up and hugging his knees, his eyes dancing bright with excitement. "Come on Bakura, where's your sense of adventure?"

Bakura sat up trying to hide his smile as he felt a stab of bittersweet déjà vu. Gods above, he certainly had a type, didn't he? However, he still felt unsettled by the dream and only longed for a low-key day relaxing at home with the comfort of Marik nearby.

"I think a lot more fun could be had in the tomb instead," he suggested, changing tactics and gently pushing Marik back down onto the pillow.

"Really, because it's all boring and dull. We've watched all the movies and Netflix—"

"Then you just need inspired," Bakura insisted, resting across Marik's chest and giving him a mischievous smile. "Have a quick think of all the good things and all the bad things that have happened in the past month."

Marik closed his eyes tight as he concentrated, putting a lot more energy into his mental lists than Bakura had required.

"Okay," he said finally, opening his eyes again. "I don't have to write these down do I, because that's going to take ages."

"No, no, no, just keep them in mind while I ask you some questions," Bakura said, twirling a bang of Marik's golden hair between his fingertips as he continued. "Of the bad things, how many of them happened outside the tomb?"

Marik considered this, his eyes darting skyward as he thought. "Most of them, I guess. I mean—"

"And did any of these bad things happen in this bed?" Bakura pressed, interrupting the start of the monologue before he lost control of the conversation.

"No."

"And the good things," Bakura continued, leaning down to kiss gently at Marik's neck between words. "Where did… the good things… happen?"

"All over," Marik replied enthusiastically.

"Exactly," Bakura purred leaning his forehead against Marik's in a rare blissful moment of intimacy. "And if we stay in bed I can make good things happen 'all over' once more. I'm very talented that way and—"

"The Oasis, the market, down by the river that time…"

Bakura leant back a little and frowned. "What?"

"You asked me where the good things happened this month," Marik reminded him patiently. "So I'm telling you, but it's going to be a long list because a lot of good things happened, like the time that we went to the bakery, do you remember Bakura, and there was a bread shaped like a peacock and you broke off its head and then…"

Bakura sighed and let his body roll off Marik and back down onto his side of the bed. He held his head in his hands and sighed. Whilst the rewards were insurmountable if successful, attempting to seduce Marik was perhaps one of the most frustrating tasks that could be undertaken. He'd spent many years attempting to flirt with him, or at the very least get Marik to realise that he was being flirted with, but Marik had always chittered on completely oblivious to Bakura's desires. But now that they were… well, in some relationship of sorts, he'd thought that flirting and seduction would become a great deal easier… how wrong he had been.

"Or when we found out the leaked spoilers for the new Star Wars movie and we went down to the midnight showing on release day and you shouted out to the crowd that… hey Bakura, you're not listening… but it was so frigging funny, remember. And that one guy, dressed as Darth Maul, started crying and his make-up got all smudged and…"

Marik now rolled on top of him and looked down sternly into his eyes as he pouted. "You're not listening to the story, Bakura."

"Marik, I was there. I remember this all perfectly."

"But you asked me where the good things happened this month and I'm explaining that they happened all over the place," Marik insisted, poking at Bakura's shoulder with a pointed finger. "Stop being such a diva and listen."

Bakura chuckled despite himself at the insult. People in glass houses… "Trust me, Marik, you have my full attention, that's why I'm being 'such a diva'."

The two looked at each other as Marik lay on top of him, arms folded over Bakura's chest and his head raised to look indignantly up at him. Bakura could feel the warmth of his body even through their loose clothing and he couldn't deny that an irritable Marik still looked irresistible, even when he was pouting. Bakura absentmindedly rested a hand on the curve of his back, stroking up and down as they argued.

"No you're not," Marik said huffing, his hands finding the mattress as he pulled himself up closer to Bakura so that their faces were mere inches apart. "Loads of good things happened, and most of them didn't happen in this bed."

"Well that had all the warmth of a Melvin hug—"

"I'm not finished," he snapped shrilly, throwing a hand over Bakura's mouth before continuing in a softer tone. "Lots of good things happened outside the tomb, but all of them happened with you. So you need to come watch the lightning because it won't be as fun if you're not there."

Having said his piece he removed his hand from Bakura's mouth and gently nudged his nose with his own.

"So you can't be a grumpy guts about it,' he continued leaning back slightly. 'Because I was being more frigging adorable than a softshipping fic back there."

"I wasn't being… softshipping?"

"Ryou and Serenity," Marik clarified with a shudder. "It's a ship that's fluffier than your hair, and it's not like they ever interact in the show."

"Yes, whereas the staggering eight episodes we spent bickering was enough to launch the biggest ship in the fandom."

"Damn straight it was," Marik said smugly as they high fived. "The fangirls were all too distracted by our sexiness to notice just how little we actually talked to each other."

"Yes, although straight isn't exactly the word, I'd use," Bakura chuckled, as he ran a hand through Marik's hair. "Look, when is this buggering storm supposed to start?"

"The afternoon, some time."

"But it's morning now," Bakura pointed out. "So I think we still have time to add some more good things to this list of yours." Bakura brought Marik's head a little lower, planting a multitude of gentle kisses over his mouth and then moving further down, trailing them carefully over his throat.

"Hmmm, the ones that happen in bed do make the top of the list."

"I feel honoured."

"You're talking about sex, right?"

"Yes, Marik." Bakura said as he stopped to make the clarification. "I am talking about sex."

"Good, because we must. It's our moral duty," Marik stated, one finger pointed in the air as Bakura bit and sucked at the flesh of his neck. "Our fangirls expect it."

"Well if the fangirls demand it…" Bakura said drawing back, a wicked grin playing on his lips as he met Marik's eyes.

"For the thiefshippers…"

"For the thiefshippers," Bakura repeated. He peeled the t-shirt from Marik's toned body and pushed him backwards onto the sheets allowing himself a luxurious moment to drink in his magnificent form before he fell down to worship it with his lips. He planted kisses over his smooth, bronze skin and ran his tongue down the contours of his abs, enjoying the little gasps that his actions elicited. With his teeth he nipped playfully at a delicate spot of skin on Marik's stomach and delighted when it made his whole body twitch and he squeaked in surprise. Always good to keep him on his toes.

"Hey Bakura," Marik said, as Bakura removed his own shirt and hooked a finger around the waistband of Marik's boxers and began to slowly tug them free too. "Could you imagine the fangirls' faces if the chapter just…

A/N: Thank you very much for reading. Any reviews, even a few quick words, are greatly appreciated. : )