13 Nov | Yu-Gi-Oh! | "Love Like Violence" [Bakura/Kisara]

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Title: Love Like Violence
Day/Theme: 13 November 2006 - could you endure such pain / at any hand but hers?
Series: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters
Pairing: Thief King Bakura x Kisara
Rating: Teens
Notes: AU, to accomodate what is is very much a crack pairing - one I adore. I think a great deal of the fascination is because my vision of this pairing is one where things blow up a lot.

 

 

He found Kisara kneeling in one of the tunnels that twisted through the mountainside, her back to him and her body a desperate curve, as if she begged the gods in prayer.

Bakura groaned in frustration, and perhaps also because the bite on his arm throbbed hotly. He'd brought this on himself – if he'd never shown her how to hide in the mountains, he wouldn't have had to try and find her. And it wasn't as if she really had to hide.

Kisara whipped her head around. "Bakura," she said, her voice startled and fearful, and full of pain. He glimpsed her hands in her lap, twisted into the fabric of her dress.

"Get out of here." Bakura turned, gesturing to her to follow. The brightness of the sun made him squint when he stepped from the cave. He shielded his eyes with his good arm and waited for her to catch up. He looked over the land below, and his attention was drawn to the plain some distance beyond Kuru Eruna - well, now it was more like a hole. He was relatively lucky that he and Diabound didn't have more injuries, considering what Kisara's dragon had managed to do to the landscape.

He was too aware of the heat to enjoy the sight properly, and irritably passed a hand across his damp forehead. "Get out, I said!" he yelled into the mouth of cave.

A moment more and Kisara stepped out, quiet as a cat on her bare feet. It seemed odd how quiet Kisara could be on those horny feet, toughened from her long days of walking the desert. She stood inside the entrance, shadowed, and looked Bakura up and down, marking each of his injuries with her eyes. Her face tightened, suddenly seeming old and tired, and she looked to the ground.

Bakura didn't know what to say – 'you didn't hurt me', perhaps, but it was her ka that had done the damage. 'I wanted you to do it' sounded too strange. So he grunted in annoyance to cover it up and began climbing down. The area Kisara had hidden in was nearly right above the village, because of the steep slant of the cliff face, and the path involved more climbing than walking. He rarely took this path when entering and leaving the village.

"You came here on purpose!" he accused, too annoyed to care that he pointed out the obvious, then spat out dust and pebbles that Kisara had dislodged from above.

"My apologies. I beg forgiveness." Her voice was throaty, which was the closest she ever got to crying.

"Add my title. Thief King," he said. If she was going into that cowed, formal mood of hers, she should do it properly.

Strangely, she laughed at that. The tiny sound seemed more sad than happy, but Bakura took it as a good sign and went on speaking. "Did I look angry? Honestly, did I look at all angry?"

"No."

"Then it was stupid to run away!"

Kisara said nothing. That was fine, most of the time, but now it gave him nothing to work with. Bakura spoke on anyway. "Coming after you made the wounds worse! If you'd stayed and helped instead--"

He realised there was no dust from above, and squinted up against the sunlight. Kisara clung motionlessly to the rock face, leaning her forehead against it.

"No, don't stay there!" Bakura shouted.

Kisara began to move again, inch by inch, obviously unwilling. Bakura shut up and concentrated on climbing, becoming more and more aware of the burn of the sun on the crown of his head. At the bottom, he let out a long, hissing breath, then crouched to steady himself against the steep rise of the ground.

Kisara thudded down lightly beside him, and he found that the hem of her dress was level with his line of sight. Instead of tilting his head back like a sensible man to get an eyeful, his gaze drifted to watch her one fist clench. The coolness of her other hand on his forehead took him by surprise.

"You might have a fever," Kisara said.

"Good," he snapped. "Then this time, you'll have to stick around to make sure it doesn't get worse, instead of running off to cry." He put his hand over her fist and pulled himself up. Kisara pulled him flush against her, and he heaved a sigh as he leaned on her. "You'd better not start thinking it was your fault I climbed up there, either. That was my choice. And your bandages were good. They stayed tight the whole time I searched."

Her grip tightened, and stayed firm and steady as she helped him limp to the hut they'd set up with a supply of salves, fresh strips of cloth for bandages, and food and water.

Bakura propped himself up in the corner of the hut, leaning forwards to grab figs off the pile of food.

"May I?" Kisara said, stepping up to him.

"Help yourself," he said through two figs, and she gave that tiny laugh again.

"I meant that I want to check the bandages. Could you remove your coat?" Kisara's voice was barely audible in her determination not to bother him.

Bakura groaned in annoyance, at the request and at the tentative way Kisara spoke, but shrugged out of his red coat. He lifted himself up to use the coat as a cushion, refusing to wince as it pulled fresh pain from the gash on his leg. Kisara was looking on sombrely.

She used one hand to check the tautness of each bandage, keeping the other one resting on Bakura's shoulder. The gesture of comfort pleased him made him grin. She was done soon.

He put his hand over the one she held on his shoulder. Kisara looked him full in the eyes, then studied his face – and then she folded herself down to sit beside him, leaning against a wall. He turned his head to look at her, enjoying the cool feel of the mud against his cheek.

"I'm sorry," Kisara whispered.

"Who's hurt here?" Bakura demanded. "You sound like you're in more pain than me."

She put her hands in her face, letting the fall of her hair hide her as she repeated, "I'm sorry." Bakura made a noise of impatience and would have pushed her back to sit up, but then she looked up and said, "I wasn't leaving Kuru Eruna."

"Of course not," he said, pleased. "It's lucky I found you the first time, out in the middle of the desert. It's too dangerous for you to test that luck, if it meant we might never see each other again."

Kisara breathed out deeply in relief and tilted her head back against the wall. Her smile lingered this time. "We found each other. It isn't as if you were looking for me."

Maybe it was the extra white of her smile, but her eyes seemed bluer. Bakura sighed in satisfaction as he looked at them. Those strange eyes – a demon's eyes, to the rest of the world – marked the immense power of the magic Kisara held within her. It was easy to just look at her and dream.

She looked away. "You should have water," Kisara said, snagging the jug from beside the food pile.

"Beer."

"Water first."

He took two huge swallows, spilling water down his neck - nice and soothing – and offered the jug to her, wiping the back of his hand across mouth with. Kisara took long, quiet sips, and he leaned over to get the beer himself.

"I'll dress the wounds again tomorrow," Bakura said, between gulps of beer. "Then another day of rest, and after that we fight again. Don't you want to be stronger?" he asked urgently when Kisara stiffened.

She drew the jug of water abruptly away from her mouth and set it in her lap. Guilt twisted her face as she looked down into it. "Bakura..."

"We have to get stronger."

Her head tilted down further and her shoulders edged stiffly upwards. "I hurt you."

"You have to," he said with a shrug – but nonchalance didn't seem to work, because Kisara still sat with tightly clenched fists, staring into the water as if hoping that everything else would stop existing. Bakura shifted so that he sat right beside her, and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"I don't care," he said, voice low and comforting. "I could have hurt you by now if I wanted revenge – even killed you, dragon god and all. But I won't. You can do anything to me, Kisara, and you're the only one I won't hurt for it. You should enjoy it! Hundreds of people would give anything for the privilege." He pressed his grin into her neck.

Kisara set the water jug carefully to the side, then curled an arm around Bakura's waist and gripped the hem of his shenti. "I don't want to hurt you, even to get stronger. And I don't even want the demon in me to get stronger!"

"It's not a demon, I told you. It's your saviour." He leaned over to reach the beer, grinning again as her grip on his shenti tightened. Even if the way she was speaking went against his plan, he could count on one thing: Kisara would remain always, endlessly devoted. He truly was lucky to have been the first one to discover this treasure.

"Relax," he said as he leaned back against her, offering her the beer.

"No thank you." Her nails scraped lightly on his thigh as her hands fisted, and her head leaned against his.

Something in the atmosphere shifted, so that the closeness seemed not close enough. "You're going to make me want to hurt myself some more, if you go on like this," Bakura said.

Kisara placed her free hand against his cheek so that he tilted his head, and then she kissed him, the awkwardness of the angle doubled by her ferocity. Perhaps he should have minded the heat, but Bakura leaned in to meet her.

The kiss seemed to have been a way to say something – Kisara often used gestures that way, making up for her sparse words – because when she was done she pushed herself away, back against the wall. Slowly, the tension that had kept her body tightly knotted faded, so that her fingers lay loosely on her lap and her shoulders lowered. She lifted her gaze to drift over him, his face and the wounds on his body.

"Don't worry about this," Bakura said, trying nonchalance again and waving a hand at his injured upper arm and the bandages around his legs.

"If you say so," she said. Then after a moment's pause: "Every time we train, I'll help you heal."

"Every time? Do you promise?"

She matched his grin with a smile, her guilt laid to rest at last. "I vow it."

Bakura bumped his head into the wall at his back, trying to keep from bursting into laughter. It would probably make Kisara think his fever was getting worse.

It was just that he thought she loved him, and nothing made him happier than to imagine how much such a simple thing would let him conquer. He laid one hand over hers, stroking those fine, relaxed fingers, and said, "As it should be."

Kisara nodded, turning her hand palm-up to meet his.