Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1727480.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Yu-Gi-Oh!
  Relationship:
      Yami_Bakura/Malik_Ishtar
  Character:
      Yami_Bakura, Malik_Ishtar
  Additional Tags:
      Thiefshipping, Battle_City_Arc
  Series:
      Part 1 of Upper_Hand
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-06-02 Words: 4620
****** Upper Hand ******
by frumplebump
Summary
     Malik struggles to keep the upper hand in his partnership with Yami
     Bakura.
Notes
     I wrote this in 2005, and it took me years to grow the balls to post
     my writing anywhere. By the time I published it here, I figured my
     Yugioh problems were a thing of the distant past, but it turns out
     Yugioh is like some tropical disease where once you get infected it
     can flare up again at any time in your life. Revisiting this now a
     decade later, there are some issues with both the relationship to
     canon, and the relationship between Malik and Bakura, that seem
     problematic. But rather than delete or heavily edit this, here’s this
     wordy note instead.
     This is an awkward mash-up of anime and manga continuity, and
     stretches the timeline of both to give Malik and Bakura more time
     around each other. When I wrote this, the seme/uke dynamic in
     fanworks was much more prevalent and accepted than it is now. That’s
     NOT what’s going on here, but this does come from the long-ago era
     when Bakura unquestioningly topped, so that’s the context I was
     working in.
     Finally, please don’t run away from the first-person POV, you kinda
     need it for writing an unreliable narrator.
You live underground until your mid-teens, you're going to be ignorant about a
lot of things. Ignorance is bliss, right? That's the rule my family lived by
for the past several millennia. Stay away from the outside world, devote your
mind and body—quite literally—to preserving the long-gone Pharaoh's memories,
and produce successors to carry on when you're finally dead. It's a recipe for
total satisfaction, all your life long!
I can't believe there was no one before me who refused to take the pain and the
subservience without question. Maybe there was—no one would have told me, of
course. No one would ever have spoken his name.
Yeah, there must have been someone else. Some forgotten disowned ancestor of
mine, who also turned his back on a life underground, who also saw the sun and
felt the wind and looked at the faces of people, so many people, people not
related by blood to you. You can't understand how intoxicating it is to see
strangers, to stand in the middle of a city street and see hundreds of people
whose names you don't know, whose lives you don't understand, who you'll never
see again.
My ancestors saw no one but their parents and siblings and spouses and children
for as long as they lived.
People are beautiful. Don't laugh—I'm not talking about the inner beauty of the
human soul or any of that crap. Believe me, I know enough to know what a
delusion those ideas are. But people are beautiful creatures. They are
attractive to look at and attractive to toy with. The power of the Millennium
Rod is useful, but it's also fun, when it comes down to it. I like to tug the
mental strings of my puppets, make them my tools at the same time as I make
them little collectibles, all mine.
I'm not so much interested in their souls. People are pretty shells, and after
spending more than half my life locked away from humanity, I can't get enough
of them now.
It's Bakura who's into souls.
We should have made a better team. I stole the bodies, he stole the souls—we
complemented each other.
He said something along those lines once. Twirling a strand of his hair and a
strand of mine around his finger, twisting them into silver-gold thread. "We
work well together."
I understand it all now. I was an idiot then, for not knowing what was going
on. He made it quite obvious, probably because he knew there was no need for
subtlety—he knew how ignorant I was, and now, the insult stings in hindsight.
Like I said, you live locked away from people, there's going to be a lot that
you can't understand.
The ironic thing is, I thought I had it all figured out. Since leaving that
damned underground cavern, I had learned a lot (I thought) about the way the
outside world worked. I knew about people, and I knew about myself. I was
strong. People obeyed me, and I had the Rod. Life was easy, especially since I
was in control of it.
Then along comes the Spirit of the Ring. I'll put it simply: I’m sixteen years
old, no one has so much as touched me before, and then there’s Bakura, making
sure I knew just how much he wanted me.
It's hard to remember where it started. To begin with, of course, it was all
about my fight with the Pharaoh and Bakura’s lust for the Items and a haphazard
deal we made while still strangers in an alley. Then it was about him telling
me he wanted to make me his, and I can still remember the way his voice sounded
when he said it.
And I remember the first time I felt something—when he told me his plan to get
me an in with Yuugi's friends. He pulled out a pocket knife and licked the
blade, staring at me from beneath his hair and smiling, before gashing his arm.
And then he laughed and threw the knife over his shoulder off the dock, and I
was flushing, because that grin and his tongue on that blade and his blood
pumping through his fingers and spattered on his cheek...
He looked at my expression and asked, "What's the matter? Can't stand a little
blood?"
I shrugged, not trusting my voice.
"Or maybe... does it turn you on?" he asked. I stared as he slowly licked the
blood off one finger.
He laughed. "Well, no time for that now, anyway. But I'll keep it in mind.
Now—" And then he changed himself into this angelic white creature that could
never have dreamed of cutting himself, much less suck on his own blood-stained
fingers while grinning at me. "—take me to my friends, please, Namu-kun?"
He was kneeling now, bent over his bleeding arm. His voice was soft and
stripped of the iron confidence of the Spirit. He turned enormous brown eyes up
to me, tears pooling around the edges—and then he winked, and I shivered before
I could catch myself. The transformation was eerie, and the fact that it was
all a masterful illusion was creepier. I admired the Spirit's ingenuity at the
same time as I wished I could put some space between us, as soon as possible. I
already felt all my control slipping into his hands, and that wasn't how it was
supposed to be. I wanted to get back to my hideout, with my Rare Hunters, and
my step-brother Rishid, where I was in charge.
"Please, help me," he said, in the same small, bruised voice, and smirking at
me the whole time. Bakura raised his uninjured arm towards me.
"Come on, you can walk on your own til we get close to Yuugi's friends," I
complained.
"That's true. I can't, however, tie a bandage around my own arm." He had
reverted to his own voice, although hearing it coming from the broken boy in
front of me still made me want to shiver.
"Um, okay. What am I supposed to use?"
He made me tear off the bottom of his shirt and wrap it around the wound. I
tried to avoid making contact with his skin or blood, which made my work slow
and sloppy and which Bakura found very amusing. "Are you afraid to touch me?"
he demanded.
"What do I have to be afraid of?" I said, trying to sound scornful.
He chuckled and didn't answer.
I had to touch him anyway, when he leaned against me as I brought him to
Yuugi's friends. And then not that much later, the night he decided he was
bored of the hospital.
 
===============================================================================
 
A summons, from the Ring to the Rod, and I knew he was standing outside, and I
went out to meet him. "I'm bored, Malik. The hospital is like a prison."
I didn't ask him how he'd gotten out, because I didn't really care. I was more
interested in the way his hair and skin glowed in the streetlights, making his
eyes seem black when he looked over at me and grinned. His host had a pretty
face, but the Spirit brought something hard and feral and beautiful to it.
"Let's go find something to do," he said.
"What do you mean?"
He shrugged. "I'm going to go walk around and see what I find, or what finds
me. I'm tired of lying in a hospital bed. Come if you want." He stuffed his
hands in his pockets and started walking away. He looked back over his shoulder
at me once.
"Don't you think I have better things to do than prowl around the city with
you, freak?" I said.
He laughed. "I don't know. Do you?"
I didn't answer, and he smiled and turned away and started up the alley again.
I wouldn't let him hear me call "wait for me!" to him, but damned if I was
going to let him walk away from me. I hurried after him, deliberately slowing
down when I got close. He didn't comment on my joining him, but I saw him smile
to himself.
We walked in silence for a moment before I asked, "Who are you, anyway?"
"It's a long story," he said.
"Why do you have a Millennium Item?"
Bakura chuckled. "The Ring," he said. "I am the Spirit of the Ring."
"What the hell does that mean?" I demanded.
So he told me that he was a thief and a tomb robber, dead three thousand years,
living through the power of the Millennium Items and his possession of his
host's body. The way he spoke, low and almost lyrical, with the moon and the
streetlights shimmering on his colorless hair and skin, anyone would have
believed him. I had been raised in ancient Egyptian tradition, and I knew
first-hand the power of Millennium Items—of course I believed him.
"And what about you?"
I looked at him. "What?"
"Who are you, Malik?" he said.
"The son of Tomb-keepers, and their avenger."
He raised an eyebrow.
"My family has lived underground, guarding the Pharaoh's memories, for
thousands of years," I explained. "We're forbidden to have any contact with the
outside world—and when the oldest son reaches his twelfth birthday, he receives
the Initiation—" I stopped. The old rage was rising up in me as it always did,
coupled with a sense of giddiness to be finally telling this to someone who
didn't already know, to open the eyes of a stranger to what happened to my
family and me.
"The Initiation?" Bakura repeated.
I hesitated only a moment before pulling my shirt over my head and turning my
back to him. "The Pharaoh's memories, carved into my body," I said caustically.
"Such a great honor."
Bakura's voice was cold. "Very like the Pharaoh, to shed the blood of the
innocent for his own self-interest." He stepped towards me and ran a fingertip
along a scar. I shivered and started to move away, but he reached up and
gripped my upper arm. "Don't be afraid of me, Malik," he said, his voice low.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"Maybe I don't want you touching me at all!" I said indignantly.
"Why not?" He leaned in close. I could feel his breath on my shoulder as he
began to run the forefinger of his free hand gently up my waist. "You don't
like that?"
I bit my lip to hold back a gasp. His hand kept moving, sliding around to my
stomach, up to my chest, his fingers brushing across my nipple. I pushed away
then, and he released his grip on my arm. I heard him chuckle as I pulled my
shirt back on.
"Fear of the unknown?" he said.
I glared at him. "You don't know anything."
That's when he grabbed the chain on my shirt and pulled me up against him, and
I just stayed there, leaning against his torso, staring at him. "Your eyes are
so beautiful and wild when you look at me like that," he said, his hand tugging
through my hair. "Like a terrified animal."
"I'm not afraid of you," I insisted.
"Prove it."
"I don't have to prove anything to you." I put my hands against his shoulders
to push myself off him. Again, he let me break away, and he didn't try to stop
me when I walked away without looking back, and I hated myself for half-wishing
he would.
 
===============================================================================
 
He reappeared the next night. I decided, when I felt the presence of the Ring,
that maybe I should prove I wasn't afraid of him. So when he tried to push me
back against the wall, I shoved him off, then moved forward and wrapped my arms
around his neck instead. I had never kissed anyone before, but he didn't seem
to care. My mouth had no sooner touched his than I felt his tongue against my
lips, and I opened them for him, then kissed back just as hard. I clenched a
fist in his hair, and when he paused for air, I forced him back down to me. He
responded to that by biting my lip sharply and I heard myself moan.
He moved away from my mouth and began alternately kissing and biting down my
jaw, to my neck. I was moaning again as I felt his tongue and teeth on the
curve of my shoulder, and even though I half-hated the desperate noises coming
from me, I couldn't stop myself.
When I felt myself starting to get hard, I pulled his head away. "Stop," I
said, trying to catch my breath.
"Why?"
"I-"
He stroked the side of my face, catching a strand of hair between his fingers.
"Why keep denying the obvious, Malik?"
"What do you think is so obvious?"
By way of answer, he dropped his other hand to cup the bulge in my pants. I
flushed.
"You need this," he said. Smirking, he added, "We can help each other in more
ways than one."
I felt his fingers beginning to work my belt buckle and closed my eyes. He
leaned in and kissed my cheekbone, right at the edge of my closed eyelid.
"You're beautiful, and I want you. It's that simple, Malik." He had undone my
belt and was now working on the button and zipper of my pants. He guided me
back against the wall and pressed his leg between mine. "Don't worry."
I gasped when I felt his fingers touch my growing erection. He smiled at my
reaction and reached farther to close his hand around me. "Nice, isn't it?"
"Stop—stop saying that—shit to me—Bakura," I groaned. "I'm not—I'm not a—"
"Yes, you are," he said, covering my lips with his. But he stopped talking down
to me.
He slid my pants down over my hips and took my cock in his hand again, stroking
it slowly as he kissed me. As he pressed against me I could feel his own
hardness, and that alone was nearly euphoria. I shuddered, and Bakura leaned
back to look at me. Then he smiled and slid down to his knees in front of me
and before I knew what was happening, his mouth closed around the head of my
cock. I gasped and arched my back against the wall, digging my fingers into his
hair as I felt his tongue. He didn't stop, but calmly reached up to untangle my
hands before gripping my hips hard. I fought to keep my hands off his head,
instead digging my nails into the wall behind me, and biting my lip to try and
keep my moans quiet.
It wasn't long before I couldn't hold back anymore. Bakura moved away as I came
with a pathetic choked sob. As my orgasm pulsed through me, I lost all strength
to stand, and sank down in a heap in front of Bakura. He smiled and tilted my
chin up. I tasted traces of myself in his mouth when he kissed me then. As he
leaned over me and I let my head sink back and my eyes close, I was furious to
feel the beginnings of tears burning in the corners of my eyes.
He saw, and rubbed them away with a fingertip.
"I believe you owe me something," he said. I gazed exhaustedly at him. He
gestured down at his own arousal.
"Oh. Um..."
"Just touch me, Malik," he said, his voice low.
So I complied. He came and settled himself between my legs and leaned back
against me. We undid his jeans, and I took him in my hand, uncertainly at first
but determined not to show Bakura any more hesitation. He ran his hand up and
down my thigh as I stroked him, then reached up to grab my hair and pull me
down to kiss him. His breathing grew rougher, and finally he put his hand over
mine and set a faster pace. In a minute he came, pressing back hard against me.
He let his head fall back into the curve of my neck, and we sat like that until
I could walk again.
When we were still in Battle City, he appeared outside my hideout, as he'd
taken to doing on a pretty regular basis. That night he had a bottle of alcohol
that he'd probably stolen somewhere, and he made me share it with him as we
wandered down the alley. Then he shoved me up against the wall and started
kissing me and undoing my pants. When he grabbed my arms and tried to turn me
around, I wrenched my wrists out of his grip and dodged away.
"So that's it? Get me drunk and then rape me?" I demanded. I could feel myself
swaying from the alcohol, but I forced myself to keep staring at him.
"No," Bakura said. "Rape's not really my style." He smiled at me, showing his
teeth. "But don't tempt me."
"Go to hell," I spat. "You can't—can't—fuck me." Why was I stammering on that
word? Damn it!
"Want to bet?"
"Don't push it." I shoved myself away from the wall and stumbled past him,
determined to go straight home without looking at him again. And without
thinking how much certain parts of me did want him to fuck me, right here,
right now.
He waited a moment, then came after me, catching my arm as I almost lost my
footing. "Malik," he said. He was standing still, holding my arm, forcing me to
stop and look at him. As I turned to him he touched the side of my face, played
with my earring. "How much is it going to take?"
"Huh?" I asked stupidly.
He just shook his head and kissed me. I knew, even drunk, that he was making an
effort to be gentle. And I knew I was melting in that over-exaggerated
tenderness, and I was enraged to find myself in this pitiful helpless state,
but in spite of that I just hung there in his arms. It really wouldn't take
much—
But then he broke away and said, "I think you should go home." I just stared at
him. "Come on."
 
===============================================================================
 
When I finally let him do it I wasn't even drunk. I let him because I was
jealous. Jealous of his damned host, whose life he had just "saved" at the cost
of our partnership. I would give him something his host couldn't.
And I'll be honest. I was tired of backing down, I wanted to get it over with.
And, yes, I wanted him.
So when I woke up at some obscenely early hour of the morning and knew he was
standing outside my room on the Battle Ship, part of me wanted to let him in
right away. Another part of me made me cross my arms and stay in my bed,
glaring at the door.
"Malik," he said from the other side of the door. "I can pick this lock in less
than a minute. Just let me come in."
I waited a few seconds before getting up and going to the door. "Aren't you
supposed to be on bedrest or something? That was quite a hit you took earlier
today."
"My, aren't we bitter," he commented.
"You fucked up our plan! We could have won that duel!"
"'We'?" He smiled at me. "I believe it was me dueling, and my host body that
was at stake. You would be a lot more pissed off if the Pharaoh had attacked
and damaged or killed my host!"
"Like hell I would. I don't need you." I turned and strode over to the window.
He came into the room and shut the door. "Then why give me back the Ring?"
"Better you have it than me," I said with a shrug. "I don't need that pathetic
artifact."
He just chuckled. As I glared at him, he crossed the room and went to sit on my
bed.
"What are you doing here, anyway?" I demanded.
"I got bored," he said, and shrugged.
I snorted.
"Come here, Malik." I ignored him. "Malik, before long, you're going to defeat
the Pharaoh, I'm going to have the Millennium Items, and our deal will be ended
and I doubt you'll ever see me again."
"I can't wait," I said.
"You'll be sorry." He started muttering, pretending to talk to himself. "Such a
pretty little virgin... so damned uptight and scared though..."
"Fuck you, Bakura!" I stepped over to him, ready to hit him. "You think you're
really something, don't you? You think the only reason someone wouldn't be
begging to take it up the ass from you is because they're scared? You—"
Right then, I felt something crack, and my pent-up tension and frustration
washed the rage away. I was horrified to realize I was a few steps away from
crying.
"Malik," Bakura said. He took each of my wrists in his hands and held them
gently. I stared down at a spot past his right leg, refusing to look at him.
"Go—go give your girlish little host a wet dream or something."
He laughed and tugged my wrists, coaxing me onto his lap. "Malik," he said
again. "I don't want him. I want you." He kept pulling on my wrists, and
finally I gave in and straddled his lap. He just held my stare, waiting. I bent
down to kiss him, and he put both hands behind my head and leaned backwards,
pulling me down on top of him. I deepened the kiss, feeling myself already
starting to get hard. I was pathetic.
He moved his hands from my head to slide them up my stomach and chest, up my
arms, down my back and over the scars I hated to be touched. I didn't care.
"I give up," I whispered against his lips. "Just do it. I don't care." I moved
off him and laid next to him and closed my eyes, ashamed of my surrender.
I felt Bakura roll onto his side to look at me. He traced my lips with his
thumb. "Look at me."
I opened my eyes reluctantly.
"That's better. Your eyes are wonderful." He pushed himself up to pull his
shirt over his head. "I want to see you watching me while I fuck you," he
added, grinning.
I wanted to tell him off—but I just nodded.
He undid my pants and slid them off my legs, tossing them to the floor, then
did the same with his own jeans, first getting a tube of something out of his
pocket.
"That's disgusting," I said, when I realized what it was.
He laughed. "You'd be pretty sorry if I didn't have it," he said.
Bakura ran his hand up my thigh to my ass. He leaned over me and kissed me just
as he began to slide a cold finger into me, so that my sharp gasp was lost in
his mouth. I grabbed handfuls of his hair as he worked his finger in me, added
a second. I was whimpering into his mouth but I couldn't stop myself.
I couldn't stop myself from spreading my legs, either, when he rolled on top of
me. He smiled and knelt between my legs as he coated himself with the lube. I
stared up at him, waiting. I didn't know what to do with my hands, and I
couldn't believe I was thinking of something so stupid.
Then he pressed into me with a sigh, and my hands flew up to grab his
shoulders, my nails digging into his flesh. "Shit," I hissed, hoping I would
break his skin and make him bleed for this.
"Mmm," he murmured. "It gets better." He started to move, slow at first, then
more purposefully. It was still hurting—and then suddenly he found that spot
and I saw stars.
"Oh, shit," I said again, in an entirely different tone of voice. I arched my
back and wrapped my legs around his sides. I didn't care anymore that I was
letting Bakura fuck me—I just wanted more of that.
He gave it to me, smiling and holding my gaze the whole time, until I couldn't
take any more and clenched my eyes shut and came all over my stomach and his.
At that, he finally closed his own eyes, and after a minute he came, and
collapsed on top of me. I released my deathgrip on him and let my arms rest on
his shoulders. He was crushing the air out of me and his breath tickled my damp
skin but I didn't care. In fact I started lazily stroking his head, running my
fingers through his hair, and when he shifted and murmured I felt happy.
Happy. At the perception of that emotion, rising out of this circumstance,
something snapped in me.What did you do to me? I looked down at the white head
resting on my chest and as I stared at Bakura, I felt a cold tide of horror and
hatred and shame rising steadily in me. What had I done? I had just given him
the upper hand—more than that, I'd just given him total control over me. For a
little bit of pleasure, I just let him have my body. My body! No one touches
me. No one fucks me. How the hell did I let him do this? How did I let myself
do this?
I could feel the rage taking over. My sense of reason faded away with a little
pang of regret, and I felt like I was watching from outside myself as I
suddenly tightened my hands in Bakura's hair and lifted his head. "Go away," I
said coldly.
"Hm?"
"You heard me." I sat up, forcing him off my body. "Get out of here."
He just stared at me. "What the hell, Malik?"
As he looked at me I was suddenly humiliated to be naked in front of him. I
scrambled off the bed and snatched my clothes. "Fucking get dressed," I
growled, throwing his pants at him after I pulled my own on, "and get out!"
"What is wrong with you?" He reached out to me and I hit his hand away.
"Get out!"
He said nothing as he dressed, but when he looked up after pulling his hair out
of his shirt, his eyes had darkened dangerously. "Don't fuck with me, Malik,"
he warned. "You will regret it."
"You'll regret using me like this, trust me. Now just get the fuck out of here
and don't ever try that again."
“Using you?” he sneered. “You wanted it. You loved it."
"Go!"
For a moment he didn't move and I wondered if he would actually hit me, or try
to use the Ring against me. Then he sighed. "It wasn't my intention to use you.
But I won't touch you again, don't worry." And then he left, without looking
back.
I was almost disappointed. I stood there staring at the door, breathing
heavily, my hands clenched into fists.
What just happened?
Why was my rage suddenly dissolving and floating away from me?
Why was I crying?
I forced myself to stop. I can't stand my own crying.
Of course Bakura was using me. This had been his goal almost from the
beginning—win me over, fuck me senseless, and then have me in the palm of his
hand. It was a good plan. It's something I would have done.
He wouldn't pull it off. I'd been stupid enough to let him get this far, but in
the end he wouldn't win.
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