WARNING: This chapter contains VERY adult material. Consider yourself told.

The Definition of Love.

Part Three.

Ryou and Anzu were watching a dvd in his apartment, but he was having trouble concentrating. She was curled in at his side, head on his shoulder, and he was far more aware of her than anything that was happening in the action movie on the tv screen. He stared straight ahead at it nonetheless, trying to make an effort to be normal.

It was a rainy weekend afternoon. The weather was beating at the windows. Perfect weather for staying indoors.

"Ryou?" she murmured.

"Hmm?"

"Why do you think they're doing this?"

Ryou winced – and was relieved she couldn't see his expression. "I wish you wouldn't ask me."

Anzu raised her head, a frown on her face. "Why not?"

"Because... I never know when he's listening in. And if you ask me, then I think about it, and if I think about it, he's going to know what I think."

The frown didn't leave her lips. "But he can't hear you, um... When you're in..."

"When I'm... in the soul room?" It sounded silly saying it out loud, even though he, and surely Yuugi, had explained to her before how it worked.

"Yeah."

Ryou shifted, and with his free hand, he laced his fingers through Anzu's.

"I don't think so. Because the point is he's cut me off."

Anzu's frown deepened, but he knew now it was because she was annoyed with herself for not reasoning out the obvious. "Right. Sorry."

"No, it's... You can ask me about these things."

"So you think it would be bad – if he knew what you thought about it? You can't tell me you somehow just don't think about it."

Ryou sighed again, and this time he rested his head on her shoulder. It gave him a surprisingly good view of her chest, which really just made Ryou feel more uncomfortable. But he couldn't bring himself to move. "I don't think he wants me psycho-analyzing either of them. I don't think he'd be amused at all."

Anzu snorted. "Well, tough. I think – "

"No," Ryou interrupted. "Don't tell me. I don't want him knowing what you think. Not about him, and especially not about Malik."

He felt Anzu shift restlessly underneath him. "This is ridiculous. I'm not going to not tell you my feelings about things just so he won't know. Otherwise, how will you ever know anything about me?"

Ryou squeezed Anzu's hand. "You're pretty brave, you know. I think it's kind of like – what do they say on American crime shows? 'Anything you say can and will be used against you'?"

Anzu laughed, but he was sure she didn't feel as light-hearted as she sounded. "Look, I refuse to let an ancient spirit dictate what I will and won't say to my boyfriend. Even if he is an evil bastard. Either he'll keep to the deal, in which case he knows that he can't control what I think or say... Or he's just been toying with us the entire time, in which case it doesn't matter what I do anyway. If I want to be with you, that's the risk I'm taking."

Ryou raised his head and looked her in the eyes. She really had no idea how brave her tenacity was. He leaned in and kissed her softly – something that, though they kept doing it, somehow still felt extraordinary to him.

She smiled at him after, but he said, "Don't underestimate him, Anzu. I see some of what goes on in here, and... It's rather terrifying at the best of times."

Anzu pursed her lips. "He tried to – to kill my friends, Ryou. I'm not going to forget that. There's a lot of things I can't forget about either of them. But I'm not going to live my life worrying about what they might do next. Bakura has to have some redeeming point, somewhere."

Ryou stared at her. He wanted to argue, but something made him hold back a little. She was right, but she was still so wrong. For all his vile, immoral, harmful acts, Bakura had never actually, really hurt him. Cuts and bruises were one thing. But he'd never purposefully left Ryou in real danger, unless that danger was shared and unavoidable. He had an acerbic tongue and an incredible temper, but though he was mean, he wasn't abusive in the real sense of the word. At least, not to him.

And yet she was wrong. You couldn't trust him. Not at all. Not to do anything nice or noble or good, or anything that made sense. Bakura was perverse in every sense of the word. Ryou knew he, himself, was changing because of all this – for the first time in a long time, he felt that his hope might actually be rewarded with something. Just this was – well, it was worth it. To be here, like this, with Anzu. To have some time alone. To have some sense of control, even if was largely an illusion. He was gaining confidence. But he didn't trust the fact that Bakura was letting him – the spirit had liked him to be compliant. Hadn't he? And Ryou would never trust Bakura. He'd woken up too many times in strange places, been used in too many awkward and unfair situations, been manipulated too many times. Ryou had thought he'd lost his dignity quite some time ago, and he wasn't sure that the possibility of regaining it was a good thing for him.

For example, to make Anzu understand all of this, he'd have to tell her about those times. And he – he didn't want to. There were some things he would always be flustered by – normal, social interactions, for example. Bakura didn't exactly give him much practice at those. But there were other, stranger things that would embarrass most people, things that he had lost the will to be embarrassed about himself. Almost any sense of privacy was gone, for one thing. Maybe that was why he clung so fiercely to manners, to politeness. And he didn't want to explain the things that Bakura had done, and then to see Anzu feel embarrassed for him.

All he could say was, "He'll try again, Anzu."

He could tell from the expression on her face, she didn't quite believe it. No... She knew it was true, but she didn't want to believe it. She was just so determined to be optimistic, and he didn't want to take that away from her, either. Anzu without her stubborn optimism... Well, she wouldn't be Anzu.

Anzu shrugged. "Remember, he's not the only one we're dealing with. And I think..." Anzu shook her head. "No, nevermind."

Ryou immediately wanted to ask her what she wanted to say. But he bit down on his tongue, instead. Given the conversation, it was obviously something he'd just told her not to say out loud. And anyway, there was an unspoken silence between them on the subject of Malik, as if he were so unpredictable there was no point even starting to think about it. Ryou squeezed Anzu's hand again, and turned back to the film.

After a moment, however, Anzu grabbed the remote, and switched off the screen. He turned to ask her what the matter was, but instead her lips met his. Oh. Okay. Confused as he might be about everything else, when they started kissing, the feel of Anzu in his arms Ryou was more than enough to forget about it all, at least for a little while.

Bakura stared at the shadowy corners of the ceiling where even the faintest light disappeared into nothingness. He lay on his back in Malik's bed, one arm bent, hand under his head. The other arm was around Malik, who had curled into his side, head on his chest. The boy was asleep. Bakura knew that if he moved his head to the left, Malik's soft blonde hair would tickle at his chin and nose, and he would be able to better smell the spiced gel that Malik used in it. Nothing about Malik was straightforward, except for this. There were moments when Bakura could see past his defences – usually, frantic, clutching, shuddering moments. There were moments when Malik simply shrugged and held his hand. And then there was this. Right before he slept, Malik just gave up. There was nothing more vulnerable than sleep, no matter what you did about it. And so he did what he wanted, which was to roll into Bakura and just... Let himself go.

If Bakura let himself, he could be stupidly content like this.

Nauseating.

He wouldn't let himself. It was so close and yet totally impossible. And the truth of the matter was... To be happy like this would mean forgetting. And he wouldn't, couldn't, forget.

Christ, everyone else had the good fortunate to do it. Ryou didn't know what a blessing it was when Bakura so helpfully locked him away. And the fucking pharaoh was privileged to forget everything, even his own fucking name.

Even Malik. Oh, he hadn't forgotten, exactly. But he was moving on from a lifetime of anger and hatred, or trying to. Trying to deal with what he'd done, to assimilate the consequences into his life, to move that life forward – despite the difficulty of reconciling what was right and wrong, and what he wanted to do and what he needed to do. Sometimes Bakura felt that Malik was the version of himself that he would never allow himself the chance to be.

A version with a tan, and a completely fantastic ass. And abs. And hands. And mouth. Good god, his mouth.

Bakura didn't understand how their paths had become so entangled in the present when they both knew there was an unbreachable distance between their futures. Nothing would deter Bakura from his plan. Not even Malik. It was about revenge, and honour, and ancestry, and of all the ironies, there was no one who would ever understand that better than Malik, either. This... interlude didn't change that. Malik had a lifetime of resentment and murderous impulses to deal with; well, Bakura had countless lifetimes, over and over, and nothing would erase that. Perhaps no amount of sand in an hourglass, no matter which way you turned it. And Malik knew it, too.

He wondered, idly, what would happen to Anzu when this eventually became clear. He loved – just flat-out fucking loved – the thought of dividing her loyalties. What would she do with all her high ideals and rose-tinted glasses? Which of her friends would she choose to stand by and which would she abandon? Because there would be a choice, sooner or later. Ryou was on his side. Ryou didn't have a choice in the matter. Whichever way you looked at it, their side was the opposition.

He could just imagine the conversation now, put into terms a teenage girl could understand. So... Team Pharoah or Team Tomb-robber?

Bakura snorted softly, and Malik shifted lightly against him.

She was a strange girl, undoubtedly. Not that he understood what the fuck was going on with women at the best of times. He had decided, to his surprise, that she wasn't a total idiot. Close, but not total. Hysterical, to watch her and Ryou try to negotiate their adolescent awkwardnesses, to get to know each other, all the while suspecting that he probably was watching and did, indeed, find them hysterically funny. Children. And it was easy enough to separate Ryou's feelings for her from his own feelings, but he wondered how she was dealing with the opposite problem. Did she know where Ryou stopped and where he began? And what kind of faith was she putting in whatever good nature, whatever morality she foolishly imagined that he might possess?

Oh, it was too good. There was no question in his mind – emotions were weapons.

The thing was, weapons were double-edged by nature. They were a strength and a weakness, whether that emotion was love or hate.

So the way Bakura saw it, he had three problems. The fact that his entire constitution was wrapped up in, formed by, inextricable from the undying anger that had been with him for as long as he could remember – not quite from his earliest memories, but from the earliest memory that counted. The memory where everything burned.

And he had Ryou. He was fucking loathe to admit it, but he needed his host. It didn't take a genius to see that. He needed his body and even worse, he liked this body. This wasn't parasitism. It was symbiosis.

And then there was Malik.

Malik knew what he had planned. And Bakura knew that Malik, sooner or later, had plans of his own. Tombkeepers to liberate, blah blah blah. They'd both be returning to that godforsaken desert country some time, but for very different reasons.

Thousands of years of waiting.

It could wait just a little bit longer.

Bakura knew that there was no one his bloody knife of vengeance would cut more deeply than it cut himself.

Anzu found herself sitting in a room with Bakura and Malik. Sitting in Ryou's room. She wondered if there was a point when it hadn't all been leading up to this, or if it had been inevitable all along.

From his chair in the corner, Malik was smiling genially, as usual, but Bakura stared at her with a dark look in his eyes. She felt like a mouse under the gaze of a hungry cat.

Then Bakura shuddered all over, and shook his head. After a second, his eyes and his mouth softened. He seemed to shrink somehow.

It was Ryou.

"Anzu," he said. He moved closer, sat next to her on the bed. "We don't have to do this."

Anzu's mouth felt dry, suddenly. Bakura had dressed Ryou – she could always tell. It was fairly obvious. Ryou was a shirt and sweater guy... Bakura was so not. Right now Ryou was wearing a shirt, but it wasn't buttoned. He wore ratty blue jeans with a number of all-too-inviting holes in them.

Anzu shook her head. "We have to try."

"Why?" Ryou asked, suddenly. "We could just go on..."

Anzu sighed. "No, we can't." She nodded at Malik. "They're getting impatient, Ryou."

"I don't trust them."

She shrugged. "Neither do I, but..."

"Hey, kids, I'm sitting right here," Malik said.

Anzu ignored him. "I want to, Ryou. And if we put this off, we're just putting it off because we don't really know whether this can ever work or not. I want to know. If this goes all right, then... Well, we have a relationship. If it doesn't, then..." She sighed. "Then we probably never will."

She understood Ryou's hesitation. She didn't quite know if she wanted that question answered either, but she knew they needed to answer it.

Anzu kissed Ryou. She started to kiss him, and didn't stop. Soon, she almost forgot that Malik was watching them from the chair. The two of them tumbled back onto Ryou's bed, Ryou on top. She felt their legs twine together, and Ryou tugged gently on her bottom lip... And then a ripple went through Ryou's body, and the kiss turned ferocious, teeth nipped at her mouth.

Anzu froze.

Bakura stopped and grinned down at her. "Hello there, kitten."

Anzu wanted to tell him to get off her, but she didn't. She half-knew something like this would happen. She'd already agreed to this.

She swallowed, though, and tried anyway. "I thought..."

"Oh, no," Bakura said. "I mean, he's watching. But you don't really want him in charge right now, do you? I mean, he doesn't even know what he's doing. I, on the other hand... Do."

Anzu lay still as Bakura kissed her again, and it was appallingly difficult not to respond. He was right. His kisses weren't the same as Ryou's – totally unsurprisingly, they were more aggressive. But they were also more sure, more driven. Bakura knew what he was doing and he knew what he wanted. And she knew that he liked taking control away from both of them.

"Oh, come on, you can't just lie there like a lump."

"...How do I know he's really still in there?"

Bakura blinked, and it was like watching a television change channels. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

"It's okay," Ryou said. His voice was hoarse. "I'm here, Anzu."

"You can feel... things?" she asked.

He nodded, apparently uncertain of what he was supposed to say.

"How do I know it'll stay that way?" Anzu thought it would be okay if she knew he was in there, but Bakura was in charge. He could shut Ryou away in his soul room at any moment and she'd never know and then it would be...

"Make him swear," Malik piped up from the corner.

Ryou snarled on top of her – no, it was Bakura. He pressed down a weight she hadn't even realised that Ryou had been careful to lift. Anzu tried to take a deep breath, but Bakura was too heavy. She fought a rising sense of panic.

"Don't you fucking help!" Bakura didn't exactly yell, but his voice was too menacing for it to be called talking, either.

Anzu concentrated on staying still. Bakura was sprawled on top of her, and for the first time, seeing the rage in those familiar brown eyes up so close, she was actually afraid. She wondered if he really was mad at Malik, or if this was another double act for her benefit.

"Bakura, I know you love to outwit and cheat and lie, but this isn't the time," Malik said calmly. He looked down at Anzu, apparently sincere. "Anzu, if you make him swear, he won't go back on his word."

Bakura glared down at her, daring her to say anything at all.

Anzu swallowed again. "Swear it," she found the voice to whisper.

"Fine."

Too easy, Anzu knew. She cleared her throat. "Swear that everything you feel, touch, experience, Ryou will feel it too, while you're in charge and we're together."

"While I'm in charge and we're together ..." Bakura seemed to catch himself before he said something so amazingly rude that she'd shove him off her completely. "... Being intimate," he amended lamely.

Malik laughed in the corner at Bakura's strained politeness.

"Shut the fuck up, you."

"Fine," Anzu agreed.

"I swear."

"Good," she said, forcing herself not to break eye contact with him.

Bakura bent his head closer to her face. "Although just so you know, you're underneath me, your legs wrapped around me. At this point, I could just take what I want whether you want me to or not."

Anzu glared now, suddenly more angry than scared. "You wouldn't dare."

Bakura just laughed and kissed her. When she didn't respond, he said, "He's feeling everything, remember."

Anzu closed her eyes for a second, and then when Bakura kissed her again, she took her anger at him and tried to turn it around. She tried to think only of Ryou. Bakura's hands didn't feel the same, his body didn't feel the same – and yet he still touched her like he knew exactly what she wanted.

Oh, hell it didn't matter, did it? What was she doing, anyway? She was about to have sex with two people in one body. Did it really make a difference which one was in charge? How the hell did Siamese twins do this anyway? Surely it was almost as weird, ancient mystical spirits aside.

Bakura's hands were under her clothes, pulling at them, and when she looked up she knew it was him, but she also knew it was Ryou's body. That he was in there. That he was doing this too.

"Ryou," she whispered.

Bakura scowled and paused. "Oh, come on. This is my good work. Have the decency not to call out someone else's name." His scowl turned into an evil little smile. "Don't make me teach you how to scream mine."

"It is your name, Ryou Bakura." she retorted. She refused to give in to the intimidation. And Anzu wasn't stupid, she could tell what he was doing. "You're both there, and you're doing things that he knows I like." Just not quite the same way, she added to herself, silently.

"Just shut up." Bakura kissed her again and Anzu closed her eyes, tried to lose herself in the sensation of his lips on hers. She could feel her clothes coming off, and she could feel Bakura's body – Ryou's body – pressed hard against her. Particularly hard in one area. She arched her hips to meet his erection and heard herself moan, almost as if there were someone else controlling her body.

"Kiss her," Bakura said abruptly, and suddenly Anzu felt an unfamiliar pair of lips on her own. She opened her eyes to see Malik's face. His eyes were also open and it only increased the intimacy of the moment. She was naked with one man pressing onto her, another leaning over and kissing her. Anzu didn't want to enjoy the feel of Malik's mouth – but she did. He was warm and inviting and, bizarrely, she trusted him more than she trusted Bakura. She didn't know why. He was clearly a manipulative liar with a screw or two that had rattled loose.

But at this moment in time, she knew he probably wasn't going to hurt her. Bakura still might.

Bakura laughed suddenly.

"Oh-ho! Don't like that, do you?"

Anzu and Malik parted, and he seemed to realise at the same time as she did that Bakura was talking to himself.

Bakura shifted his weight off Anzu, rolled to one side and stretched out alongside her, attitude casual. "Someone," he says, "Is not happy watching that."

"You bastard!" Anzu said. Belatedly, she remembered the problems attached to making Ryou experience everything Bakura wanted him to.

"Don't worry," Bakura grinned at her. "He'll probably like this less."

Bakura reached over her and grabbed Malik's neck, pulling him half-over Anzu in a kiss. Anzu tried not to move. Even though she knew it wasn't Ryou in charge, when Malik opened his mouth against Bakura, Bakura's whole face softened. He looked, more than ever, like Ryou.

It was like watching Ryou kiss Malik.

Anzu knew she ought to feel jealous, or... Something. But all she could think is how beautiful they both were.

She gasped as, all of a sudden, she felt a hand between her legs. She couldn't tell which of them the hand belonged to; the way their bodies were pressed together over her blocked her view. Anzu thought of struggling, but oh hell, it felt too good, and her anxiety was all tangled up with the heat that rushed through her at his - their - touch. The hand was gentle, quick, probing, and Anzu struggled to repress another moan.

Then the hands changed abruptly and Anzu knew, now, that the first one had belonged to Malik, because this one was more Bakura's style – quick and fast and rough. Anzu arched her back involuntarily - again. She tried to tell herself to get a grip, and opened her eyes – but when she did, she saw that Malik and Bakura weren't kissing any more. They were watching her face. She felt a blush spread over it.

Bakura just grinned. "You feel ready."

"I..." Anzu said.

"Oh please. Don't tell me you've changed your mind now. You're lucky Malik likes foreplay, for one thing."

Anzu stared at them both for a heartbeat, and then told herself sternly, now or never. She said, "Okay."

Bakura used his knees to part her legs further, and then he sank down on top of her.

"Wait," she said. "Condom?"

Bakura just rolled his eyes. "What do you think my hands were doing while Malik's were so busy?"

"Okay, okay." Anzu fought not to blush at the reminder. She could feel him hard against her, ready, and she tried not to brace herself – knew that if she tensed up, it would hurt more. But then he was inside her, and the sensation makes Anzu gasp, shudder – and it hadn't hurt at all. It felt tight, very tight, but it didn't hurt.

Bakura froze. "What the fuck? I thought you were a fucking virgin."

Malik snorted. "That's kind of a contradiction in terms."

"I am!" Anzu protested, not quite believing they were even having this conversation.

"You are now," Malik couldn't seem to resist saying. Anzu was glad someone was finding this so amusing.

Bakura's dark brown eyes looked almost black now, but he was pressed against her, inside her, and the rush of adrenaline that Anzu felt at his anger mingled with the adrenaline, the hormones already pulsing through her body. All mixed up and she couldn't feel fear, only anticipation.

"Then why the fuck isn't this hurting you?"

"I don't know!" Anzu thought vaguely that she ought to be embarrassed, but there was just plain too much else going on.

Bakura moved suddenly – withdrew and slammed back into her. The force of it was so close to pain that Anzu cried out.

"I wanted it to hurt!"

"Ballet classes," Malik said.

"What the fuck?" Bakura turned his head and yelled at him.

"She does ballet."

"What the dithering fuckhead does that have to do with anything, you stupid Egyptian asp!" Bakura yelled again.

Malik still wasn't phased, though Anzu was beginning to wonder if there was any possible way this whole thing could end well.

"Well," Malik said, taking on a mock-instructive tone, "Ballet is one of those sports that requires young girls to do a lot of stretching. And be very flexible."

"So?" Bakura yelled again.

"Oh, god. Do I have to spell it out for you? I guess all the blood is in your cock right now and not your brain. She probably already broke her freaking hymen by dancing, okay?"

"Well what the hell is the point of me doing this, then? If it wasn't going to hurt, I might as well have let Ryou do it!"

Anzu couldn't help it. It was too absurd. She giggled.

"Shut up!" Bakura yelled.

"Oh, make me, please," she responded. "You know, if you're not going to do anything while you're there, you might as well get off." She laughed harder. "Well, I mean, if you're not going to get off, you might as well stop."

Malik started to laugh too. "Honestly, Bakura. Just shut up and get on with it." He lowered his voice, and leaned in, but Anzu still heard him. "If it makes you feel any better, you're still fucking the only girl the pharaoh has had any interest in for a few thousand years. You and Ryou have stolen her right out from under him, and if that doesn't get you nice and hard, I don't know what will."

Anzu heard the information, but she just couldn't seem to care. She wondered if she should. But looking up at Bakura – at Ryou's face – she realised it was too late for all that. It was Ryou she wanted to be with.

Bakura just stared down at her. "Did you just tell me to 'make you' shut up?"

Anzu stopped smiling.

"Fine." His malicious grin was back. "I will."

Bakura began to move in and out of her, and Anzu felt a sense of helplessness that was surprisingly pleasant. Her hips rose to meet his, again and again. Anzu felt a building sense of pressure inside her and she realised that Bakura's attempt to shut her up had succeeded in almost a perverse way – it took all her concentration not to give in to how good it felt, not to express that feeling with series of moans. But some part of her retained enough resentment at Bakura not to give in to that feeling. She bit her lip, and again, trying to regain some sense of self-control, forced herself to open her eyes.

It didn't help. Anzu's eyes fluttered open and she saw that although he was moving inside her, Bakura was kissing Malik again. Seeing the two of them together above her sent a spike of desire through her so sudden that even she was taken aback. She felt her whole body tighten around Bakura's – arms, legs and other more intimate parts.

Feeling it too, Bakura looked down at her, surprised. "Oh, really? I mean, I could tell you liked that, but that much?" He paused. And then his Chesire grin stretched from ear to ear, and his teeth flashed in a way that Ryou's never did. "Say," he said. "Here's an interesting proposition."

"Oh god, what now?" Malik rolled his eyes and pulled back from them both. "This deflowering could go in the Guinness Book of Records if it goes on for much longer."

Bakura ignored him. "How much would you like Ryou to kiss you right now?" And then Bakura flexed his hips, to make it clear what he meant by "right now." Anzu tried not to writhe underneath him.

She stared into his face, as cruel as ever, like he could take a smile and turn it into a glare somehow. "Don't tease me," she said, annoyed that her voice sounded more like she was pleading than ordering him.

"I'm serious."

Anzu took a deep breath. The honest answer? "You know I'd like that more than anything."

Bakura glared in earnest now. "I'm going to overlook the insult to my own skills, just this once," he said. "I'll let him kiss you... But then he has to kiss Malik."

Anzu looked at Malik's face. For a moment she thought that he was going to maintain his usual inscrutable smile, but then he winked at her.

"Don't you care?" she asked him, unable to stop from blurting the words.

Malik shrugged. "A change is as good as a holiday," he said. Which, of course, answered nothing. As usual.

Anzu looked back up at Bakura. "I can't answer that," she said. "It's up to Ryou. It's his mouth."

Bakura laughed again, and it was so delighted that Anzu felt the urge to snap what's funny? at him. But before she could open her mouth, Ryou's lips were against it. And they were most definitely Ryou's.

His hands slid down her body and he pressed himself against her like a drowning man. She felt him move inside her tentatively, uncertainly.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

Anzu nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Ryou brushed a strand of hair across her forehead. "You're beautiful, Anzu."

Weirdly, his sweetness made her feel more self-conscious than anything else up to this point. Bakura and Malik had been so casual – evil, but casual – about the whole thing that it had made it easy for her not to think too much about the position she was in. To try not to think much about it. But now Ryou reminded her, just by being himself. He kissed her again softly.

"It's okay," he told her. He smiled, and the smile was just a little more cocky than she was used to seeing on his face. "I really can feel everything." He paused. " Just... Just do what you want to do, okay?"

He moved inside her again, still a little experimentally, and Anzu shivered in response.

"I know, I know," Ryou muttered, clearly talking to Bakura. He looked up at Malik and blushed. "Well?"

"Weeeell, what?" Malik drawled. "The deal was that you kiss me, not that I kiss you."

Ryou took a deep breath. He leaned on his elbows over Anzu, pushed himself up a little further. He leaned forward and his lips touched Malik's cautiously – but then Malik reached out and grabbed Ryou, pulled him closer, and kissed him fiercely.

Anzu couldn't help it. They really were beautiful. It was like bronze and ivory touching each other, and if she wanted to, she could touch them both. Anzu felt her heart beat faster. She knew the instant Bakura took over, because he grabbed Malik's lower lip in his teeth and bit down savagely, at the same time as he began to ride Anzu again. Malik let out a groan – from pain or pleasure or both Anzu couldn't tell, but she the sound was echoed by one from her own mouth.

Malik's body slid down beside hers and she was suddenly pressed between two of them, Malik at her side, Bakura on top. Malik was hard against her thigh, still kissing Bakura, while Bakura moved in and out of her with the desperate need to possess her, to possess all of them at once. Anzu's whole body moved. Her breath came in gasps. And then she felt Malik's hands – one of them on himself, stroking steadily, the other back between her legs. That hand brushed Bakura's shaft as Bakura kept moving, and Bakura faltered for just a moment in his movements, groaned above her for the first time. When he did, Anzu had a second to realise that although he got off on the power he had over her and Ryou, it was Malik who actually made him desire.

Then Malik's fingers began to move over Anzu, to flick deftly and quickly at that soft spot between her legs, and Anzu felt as though her body were about to disintegrate. She wanted to scream someone's name, but she doesn't know whose, so she settled for whimpering "Oh god oh god oh god," instead.

And then it felt like the three of them – the four of them – hit an electric current, like their bodies were connected by tangled rope that had suddenly been pulled taut, and now the vibrations were moving down the entire line. When the shock hit her, Anzu heard herself cry out, as Bakura and Malik did.

And then it was over. Anzu's breathing was heavy – she struggled to breathe at all. She couldn't have moved if she wanted to. And she didn't want to move.

Bakura collapsed against her.

And then he whispered, "Anzu," and she looked up into Ryou's gentle eyes. He kissed her softly, and she clutched at him. She began to laugh, and it was nothing like Bakura's laugh, or even Malik's more mischievous peal.

It was a laughter that was purely happy.

A few weeks later, Ryou let himself through Malik's front door with Bakura's spare key.

Malik apparently heard the door open because he called out from his bedroom. "You said you weren't coming over, you loveable jackass. I have other plans, now."

Malik stuck his head out of the bedroom doorway, and did a double take. Ryou guessed he could tell right away that it was him, because Bakura had actually let him choose his own clothes – he assumed, just to mess with Malik, who didn't seem to admire his collection of vests.

"Ryou?" Malik walked into the room and he was half-dressed himself, apparently trying to decide on one of the two shirts in his hands.

Ryou shrugged, feeling awkward. "Bakura let me walk over."

"Oh, Bakura let you walk to the station, spend thirty minutes on one train, wait in the cold night air on the platform, spend another twenty minutes on that train, and then walk from the station to my house?"

"Er... Yes."

Malik shook his head ruefully. "You sure are something."

"Um... Thanks?" Ryou said.

"No, not you, idiot. I was talking to Bakura."

"Oh, well... I assume he's listening."

"I thought you were supposed to be with Anzu tonight." Malik said. "Didn't you have a date?"

"Uh, yeah." Ryou stared at the carpet. "Her dad caught her sneaking out and grounded her. We'll have to figure something out, I guess."

"Oh?" Malik smiled, as if he found such a trivial and ordinary teenage occurrence to be absurd. "Do you think we should send Bakura to meet her parents and reassure them of her whereabouts?"

Ryou couldn't help it – he laughed softly at that thought, before he realised he probably oughtn't, for all kinds of reasons likely to piss off more than one person.

Malik narrowed his eyes. "So. Not that it isn't nice to have this little talk, but why are you still here?" Malik came to stand in front of Ryou, and he waved his hand in front of Ryou's eyes. "Helloooo, Bakura? Are you in there? You better come out, because even if you don't, you're going to be bent over my couch in about five minutes with me fucking you."

"Malik!" Ryou blushed. "I know you wouldn't do that to me."

Malik's purple eyes turned cold. "You have a weird amount of faith in me, Ryou. You ought to remember that I'm not your friend."

Ryou cleared his throat. "I choose to believe otherwise."

"Oh, Christ. Next thing you know Anzu will be over here making a speech about it and offering to braid my hair." Absent-mindedly, Malik combed his fingers through his unruly blonde mane.

"He's just waiting for me to say something to you."

"He's what?" Malik said, surprised. "Are you kidding me? ... You are kidding me, right? Did you find some way to destroy that gawdy ring and now you're just fucking with my head?"

Ryou rolled his eyes. He said, "I figured it out."

"You did find a way to destroy the ring?" Malik didn't seem too concerned, so he obviously was being deliberately obtuse.

"No," Ryou said. "You told me... That things all depended on my definition of love. Well, I figured it out."

"Yes, yes," Malik replied impatiently. "Please, lay your pearls of wisdom on me. What is it?"

Ryou opened his mouth to answer... But he didn't get the chance to actually speak.

"This!" Bakura snarled, delighted to ruin – or just possibly prove – Ryou's explanation, and before Malik could move, Bakura tackled him down onto the carpet and straddled him. Malik was winded beneath him, but Bakura liked that. He ground himself against Malik's body, ran his hands up Malik's bare chest. He dug his nails into Malik's skin, not quite hard enough to break the skin, and pulled his hands back down again, leaving red, angry welts down Malik's trim torso. Malik writhed underneath him and Bakura could feel him growing hard, so quickly, just like always.

"What was that about bending me over your couch?" Bakura asked with a grin.

As soon as Malik could draw breath, he was laughing. And to Bakura's surprise, just for once, it sounded purely happy.

End.

Thank you SO much to everyone who read and reviewed this story. I really do appreciate your comments, and to those who didn't sign in or left me anon reviews, I'm sorry I can't reply personally! I hope you all enjoyed the last (ridiculously porny) instalment of this story, which I have been terribly nervous about posting. And now... on to more thiefshipping, I guess...!