Work Text:
/
Bakura once measured the length of Atem's body, naked in bed as they were, with the investigative touch of wandering hands. He counted off by fingers and then by palms and then by spans and then by cubits and then by tongue—one long stripe, from heel to crown.
Atem surprised them both when he had giggled then, ticklish, his voice squealed and surprised. His deep tone transformed to its former, near-forgotten height: the high pitch of a prepubescent. It was a sound Bakura once knew very well, Atem's voice whistling when he noticed a small shadow running past when there should have been stillness. Atem's voice had squeaked for attention, and Bakura bore the brunt of Atem's notice for weeks. The lashes across his back stun but were not as severe as those that took Bakura's cousin and accomplice from this world, killed by infection to likely face Ammit's maw in the afterlife. While Bakura's wounds did not get gooey from pus, it was only from the sacrifice of constantly shifting his shirt to prevent the fibers from fusing with the closing wound.
/
That was their first encounter—as child and child, not yet man and "god." Not yet thief and pharaoh. Not yet degenerate and the lucky bastard born into wealth by nature of his birth and circumstance and the circumstances of all that led him to rule the Nile and the people welp by the water's perpetual swells.
But Atem was and would always be the sun and the stars and the overseer of riches so few will ever have reason to witness despite the bedtime tales the poor tell their children about their precious king's hoard shining elegance, reverence, and vitality.
The two—him and Atem—were children, then. Of a similar kind and form, even of a similar height before Bakura eventually outpaced him, but they were not equal.
Atem squawked. Bakura was caught. Bakura faced his lashes.
/
Bakura refused to be bested. Next time, Bakura stole away a fistful of gold. He ate handsomely for a month, meaning that he ate at all and regularly. He gained weight in areas that Bakura was not convinced fat should collect given how he had never witnessed anything like that on his body beyond skin stretched across bone.
The potential reward was too great to ignore.
The following attempt after his success, only the healing strain of his lashes fed Bakura through the incitement of rage.
The next found them in a stalemate: Atem saw him (how did he know? how did he always know? unless… unless he didn't, and just always scrolled the halls like a phantom…), but Bakura was across a courtyard. Before Atem could run for him, Bakura faded into shadows, empty handed but alive and whole.
The close call should have told Bakura to lie low. To give up. To admit defeat.
/
He went back, because of course he did. Bakura went back and that time came out successful again, running off with a torque of solid obsidian hundreds of years old from a dynasty Atem and his kin were meant to guard for the mere propriety of maintaining the kingdom's sense of grandeur. It was one of hundreds if not thousands tucked away in the palace. It was nothing unusual to the black market scene, and it was unremarkable in its beauty. It cut a night sky into Bakura's palm when he held it, its blackness consuming like a pupil dilating in pleasure or fear. Bakura felt both, holding the obsidian. The black stone felt heavy. Heavier than it should for its size. The cane and fish and bread bought with the necklace felt even heavier in the pit of Bakura's stomach. It made Bakura sick. The wealth. The ease of privilege. The stink of all the putrid bloated corpses of all the enslaved and imprisoned and wretched beneath the perfectly woven sandals on the pharaoh and his son's feet.
Resentment made Bakura careless: he went back too soon, and he did not plan enough, and ale had poisoned his mouth with unwarranted confidence. Atem heard his thunderous approach as if just the grinding of Bakura's teeth roared like thunder. Bakura bowed his goodbye and surrender. Atem took pity on him. On him, Bakura. On him, thief.
Atem grasped Bakura's shoulder (and when had he gotten so close?) and squeezed. From the small distance between them, Bakura could see the smudges of bruises under the prince's eyes. The dullness of his gaze. It surprised him, to see such a human fragility of something like bags on a royal's face; were they not supposed to be perfect? What surprised Bakura more was when Atem let Bakura go by walking off the way he came.
Dismissing him.
Ignoring him.
Turning his back on Bakura.
No.
/
No.
/
"Why?" Bakura growled like an animal, spit thrown from his teeth as he pressed the prince and one day king to the wall.
Atem shrugged, unconcerned by the violence. "I enjoy this game of ours."
A…
Game.
Bakura had never known a hate as scalding as the disgust that filled him until that very moment.
"You think I am playing with you, boy?" The epithet slurred as if Bakura was not still a child himself.
"Of course."
"You think—" Bakura snarled. He held Atem back with one hand, and with the other he loosened the ties to his top. Tension filled Atem's body at the movement, likely misreading the action. Bakura cleared it up for him soon, however, as Bakura rolled his shoulder forward, showing Atem his back and shoulder blade. The ugly pinch of scars pulled as Bakura manipulated himself into a position he should have the flexibility for but didn't for the very knot of gnarled tissue he was presenting to Atem. "—you think this is fun for me?"
The o of Atem's mouth and the subtle shifting of his brows told Bakura of sympathy. Or… regret. Or… emotion. Some emotion. Soft and pliable. Soft and serious. Soft and wise beyond their meager years.
Atem was a child. Bakura too. They were children. This was all so serious, so much bigger than them and yet—forced into a binary of have and have not.
When Atem found nothing to say, Bakura had had enough. He thought to murder the stupid prince right there—to win the game Atem imagined for himself by disregarding any semblance of accepted rules of engagement. Atem would be gone. Bakura could walk away from this with so much more than he came with. More than the torque that started this moment.
When Bakura reached for Atem's neck, he stopped before he processed why. The press of metal cold against his belly startled him. A dagger.
"That is enough for tonight, thief," Atem said evenly. Unafraid. "Leave."
/
Bakura left, trembling with anger and defeat and... and…
/
But still, he went back.
Again and again.
He went back.
He went back.
/
For years, they slipped into this. This pattern. This habit. This game.
Years.
Again and again Bakura went until Atem became his shadow—Atem was still suspicious so that brought him wandering the halls and caches and places he should not be.
It should not have been like this. But it was.
/
There were other places for Bakura to case. Places he was guaranteed to outwit any locals, guards, or fellow robbers and walk out with a prize. Bakura did try those sites and he stole and he gorged himself and he fucked and he enjoyed himself and yet always, always he went back.
Back to the palace.
Back to danger and the potential for this time, the punishment would be worse. Maybe death. But with experience and years, Atem's instinct of finding Bakura matured into curiosity without the edge of hostility. Atem would not yell for the guards as he once had the second he sensed Bakura stirring. In fact, after Bakura revealed his lash scars, Atem never reported him to his father's guard again. Instead, he called his personal companion—a lanky fellow named Mahado—to deal with Bakura. Mahado arranged for time in a labor camp, where Bakura might be struck but likely would not… if he behaved.
Bakura rarely behaved. But it was the thought that counted, at least Bakura thought Atem would think so.
/
They rarely spoke to one another during these encounters. Their bodies reacted as opposite ends of a whirlwind: crawling in circuits round and round in a tumultuous dance.
Once, Bakura asked, "Why are you always awake?"
Atem did not jump back in surprise at the interruption to their silence. It was as if he had known tonight, Bakura would speak.
"I do not sleep well."
It must have been the restlessness of Apep seeping out of the void snake's lair, Bakura instantly thought to this statement; the immediacy of this analysis made Bakura believe it was a revelation given from the gods themselves. Apep's hunger for the sun infected Atem with the weight of princely responsibility and complicity in the subjugation of the people of these lands. Every night, as Apep snapped at Ra's crown, and every night, Atem roamed for something he could not have while cursed with the foul reality of his and his family's extortion.
Bakura opened his mouth to ridicule the idiot prince.
Instead, what sighed from his mouth was a confession.
"Neither do I."
/
Sometimes, Bakura was caught.
Sometimes, Bakura narrowly escaped.
He always went back.
/
It occurred to Bakura, far too late, that he could attack Atem.
He felt stupid it had taken so long for this to occur to him. He had long held another's heartbeat in his hands, feeling as it slowed under his assault. He had been soddened with blood. He had survived an encounter only because another had died.
He would later defend himself to Atem by saying that hurting the boy—let alone killing him—would yield a fate worse than death. Torture that undoubtedly would drag for years. Humiliation. Such thorough desecration of his body he would be lost before the weighing against Maat's feather.
He would say that, but that was a lie.
He just had not thought to, other than the once and even then it was just a reaction to pity. The slight boy then teen then man became a slate of clay in Bakura's mind's eye. The brown of his skin withstood fires and pressures, use and ornamentation… but as with the medium, to push Atem, to drop him, to knock him around… Bakura could shatter him.
Bakura could break him.
This was all he had known for so long. Risk. Danger. Desperation. He wagered his life and body every moment he breathed. Since the shunning of his tribe. He was son of Kul Elna, marked by his hair and his profession and his accent and down to his ka. He was a thief. He was a murderer. He was the crushed man beneath the injustice of the pharaoh's schemes. He was pariah.
This was his existence. This is what he had to do, just as much as Atem was destined to command after Aknamkanon. The two—him and Bakura—locked into the paths of their birthrights.
/
He despised Atem.
/
(He would always despise Atem.)
/
When Atem became pharaoh, it should have shifted something.
Bakura did not question when it did not.
Nothing changed between them.
Even as they stopped being child and child, and became man and "god." Became thief and pharaoh. Continued to be degenerate and the lucky bastard born into wealth by nature of his birth and circumstance and the circumstances of all that led him to rule the Nile and the people welp by the water's perpetual swells.
/
Bakura wondered what Atem saw in Bakura's eyes. Perhaps a desire to tear something apart. Destroy something. Destroy Atem.
When Atem looked at him, there was something to the gaze that Bakura could more easily identify its presence for, but never could be name just what it was. A deep want that carried from youth to adulthood. Bakura could not understand what he knew laid there.
/
Bakura found what he was looking for in what was looking for him.
Or—rather—who.
/
There would be months between attempts.
There would be weeks.
There would be days.
Once, mere hours when Bakura snuck in twice in one night.
Once, two years.
Bakura had not meant to be gone so long, but he got busy. He was building connections. He was establishing his reputation. He ran errands. He slept. He was sick of forced labor. He gambled. He killed. He lived. He lived.
There were rumors of massive political intrigue and spiritual drama in the palace. It was always there, but determined little Atem wanted to fix it. Strides were apparently being made.
Nothing he did benefited the people. The masses.
Bakura had no sympathy for the short man (not god, fuck, Bakura was near him too many times over the years for him not to see the vulnerable humility of humanity in Atem). Bakura did not want to play witness to the turbulence of the palace so consumed with itself in a narcissism that did more damage than Bakura ever could.
So he did not return for two years.
/
Eventually he went back.
Because of course he did.
/
He went, and he was immediately caught.
Atem had barreled into him, forcing Bakura into a wall. He held his knife to Bakura's throat; even the glance of it against skin beaded blood across its fine edge.
"I should kill you," Atem rumbled.
"Why now? Tired of our game?" Speaking dug the knife into Bakura's throat. He suffered through it.
In the depth of the night, Atem's eyes glowed eerie as aubergine crested his blown pupils. That Bakura could note the exact shine of the wet of Atem's gaze was such an intimate detail, such an intimate closeness. There was something there in the purple Bakura could not read. Something hunted—perhaps? Bakura wanted to steal the meaning of Atem's expression, but it was one Bakura could not. Not when Atem took another step forward.
They had never been this close before. They became closer still: there would be a line of red slit from Bakura's throat.
He felt the blood flow.
"I tire only of the shadows," Atem said. He looks tired. More tired than Bakura has ever seen him before. Gaunt and ugly. "They never are you."
Atem removed his weapon from Bakura's throat. Bakura waited for the call for Mahado; he was long trained for the rules of their exchange. The manservant would be called, sentence served, and that would be all. Instead…
Instead, Atem reached for Bakura's hands. Bakura, aware of the knife Atem always positioned for the most vindictive damage, allowed this bizarre and unnerving manipulation. He allowed Atem to reach for him and to cup Bakura's hands. Bakura stood still as Atem laid his dagger across the width of his palms. Then Atem reached for his own ears. He disengaged his golden hoops. These he placed on top of the dagger. Then came his bracelets. Then his hair cuffs. His ankle bands. His rings. It was getting awkward to hold them all, but Bakura stood fast until all that was left was the golden noose wrapped around
"Leave and do not come back, thief." Atem removed the torque (unremarkable, one of hundreds) and laid it on top of Bakura's hoard as punctuation for a decade of cat and mouse. "Give me at least this peace."
/
Bakura left.
He left and he sat with his winnings and he felt a rage and disgust that had his heartbeat throbbing in his ears and hands.
He remembered the look in Atem's eyes. The flash of…
Of…
It took days for Bakura to be able to form the words.
It was a flash of loneliness. So deep. So consuming. The snap of Ammit's bite long swallowed the whole of Atem's heart and held his heart in the shadows of Atem's unworthiness.
/
The bounty Atem gave Bakura would cover his experiences for years. A decade. Maybe more. They were so fine. They were so new. They had likely been made for the pharaoh, given the delicate inscriptions on its surfaces honoring Atem. The jewelry would have never touched the dead. No one had something like this. No one but Bakura.
He slipped on the torque. It was heavier than he expected.
He sat.
And he thought.
And he planned.
/
When Atem woke to a knife pressed to his throat—his own dagger—he did not cry out. He did not fight. He looked at Bakura straddling his chest, and there was not disappointment or anger swirling his eyes dark. Only acceptance.
Bakura let Atem feel his death.
Then, he asked a question. "Are you lonely, my king?"
Atem glared. "Do not play with me in this. Do as you came for. Raid my stores. I do not care."
That felt like a yes. "I came not to steal."
Atem sneered mean and desperate, "Then what, thief?"
After so long, they had never greeted one another.
"Atem," Bakura whispered. The man swallowed at being addressed. It was the first time Bakura had said it aloud in front of him. "My name is Bakura."
Before Atem could process the confession, Bakura grabbed at Atem's hand. He slid the knife into it, passing the handle easily from palm to palm. He positioned the tip to his kidney.
"If there is anything you do not want, use that."
"What—"
Bakura laid a hand over his own cock through his pants. Instantly, Atem's mouth fell open into an o, a sharp inhale of breath signaling he immediately understood Bakura's intentions.
"Bakura…" A tremble vibrated across the first syllable.
Bakura rubbed. Slowly. Surely. His eyes never dropped from Atem's. Atem's never dropped from his. Even as Bakura's cock swelled. Even as he loosened his pants and pulled out his engorging length. Even as Bakura moaned and quickened his pace.
Atem's stare held, as did his hand with the knife in it. Atem just stared, breath becoming heavier and heavier. Desperate.
"If I shove this in your mouth"—Bakura squeezed his fat cock head, already sweaty and warm with pre-come—"could I trust you not to bite it?"
The knife scattered across the floor. Atem grabbed Bakura by his haunches and pulled. He pulled, and Bakura shuffled up Atem's chest, and Atem opened up—ready and eager and hungry.
/
Making love to Atem was easy. The man spilled his legs open with the slightest suggestion of a touch. He sighed heavy and hearty when smiled to just right, with a shadow cast over one's forehead when necks are bent to go in for a kiss and hair inevitably falls forward. He weakened to endearments whispered in his ear, greedy for soft praise like a yearning for confections. He was so easy to please, so easy to make tear up as pleasure racketed up his bodied. He liked his ass ate, and he liked his hole filled but only when thoroughly wettened by oil, and he liked hands petting his hair once his body has spent, and there was so, so much power trapped in his tiny body in all its four cubits glory—well, three if by royal accounting. Power Bakura was realizing he could wield. Power that could be his. Power to burn the foundations of this ugly society and build something greater… all while getting his dick wet.
It was perfect.
It was beautiful.
Bakura knew this was to be his best and more successful plan.
He would never fuck Atem the brutal and consuming way he would always want to, but…
But in exchange, Bakura would bring the world to its knees just as readily as he drops its pharaoh to his.
And that? That counted for something. The weight of possibility edged the scale. He would have Atem's loyalty so tightly held that one day, when Atem encounters Anubis, there will be nothing for him and Thoth to weigh against to judge his soul. Bakura will hold his heart.
/
Lips against lips, Bakura understood to the core of him that the clay of Atem's skin would not break, because it had not actually set. Bakura's hands would form the flesh. Bakura's cock would dig the cradle of this dynasty's destruction.
And Atem? Atem would and did beg for it.
/
Bakura once measured Atem and found him pathetic.
But oh, did he moan so, so sweet.
//