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Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.
It’s a saying he knows from the inside of Ryou’s brain, and for some reason — probably the rhyme — he’s always remembered it.
It’s been years, now, since his soul gave the Duat indigestion and it spat him back out. In that time, one of the many things he’s learned (about himself, others, the world at large) is that modern language has no shortage of euphemisms for no-strings-attached sex.
Flings. One-night stands. Hookups. Friends with benefits.
All describe a situation that involves a good time without an emotional commitment, without repercussions for the future: get in, get off, get out.
Despite the long string of prostitutes that had littered his degenerate past life, however, Bakura can’t remember any phrases for sex that held this same casual meaning in the old tongue. If asked back then, he would have defined sex in one of only two ways: a purchase or a duty.
But the sands of time have shifted, and the current horizon has a very different shape. A one-night-stand requires no monetary exchange; a hookup requires no marriage. Even stranger: being friends with benefits requires being… friends.
Perhaps casual phrases like these had existed in the past and he’d simply never bothered to remember them. Or, perhaps twenty-first century humans had fundamentally different ways of relating to each other — ways that were not compatible with life long ago, when the sun was harsh and the gods even harsher.
In any case, although modern slang annoys him, Bakura does begrudgingly understand that new realities require new vocabularies. It’s another artifact of his tenancy in Ryou’s brain: the simple certainty that new ideas cannot be trapped in old words; that the universe evolves, and the melodies of the human experience evolve along with it.
All of that is good and fine.
But what Bakura can’t accept, what frustrates him endlessly, is when he finds himself searching through all the words he knows — both the old and the new — and yet unable to find the ones he needs. When he grasps for the right way to describe things in this strange, fantastic, ridiculous world he now lives in… and comes up empty.
Is it that the words don’t exist, or that he does not know them? Out of all the vocabulary jangling around in his head, there doesn’t seem to be a word that accurately describes the smell of an indoor shopping mall, or the taste of eel, or the sound of highway traffic. Not to him, anyway.
No, Bakura refuses to settle for words that don’t fit, words that feel too cheap. He’s become convinced, instead, that there simply are no words for some things. Like the way Domino City looks covered in a fresh coat of snow. Like the way he feels when Ryou says, “I’m proud of you.”
And, especially, like whatever it is he’s doing with the Pharaoh.
Which brings Bakura’s train of thought right back around to wham, bam, thank you ma’am (and curse that fucking rhyme) because that — what he’s doing with Atem — is… well.
It’s definitely sex.
(And, oh, it’s good sex. Sex that makes his blood hot, makes animal sounds escape his throat, makes any other person or place or time seem like nothing but a distant memory.)
But it’s not a purchase, it’s certainly not a duty, and the thief knows — in his gut, in his mind, in the deep dark core of his heart — that it’s not the slightest bit casual.
Bakura also knows very well, of course, that having a hookup or a one-night-stand is exactly what they should have done with each other, once they decided to do anything at all. Have some fun, any sane person would have said. Channel the competitiveness, break the tension, maybe experience a bit of catharsis.
Casual sex would have been so simple. They could have easily fucked in a bathroom, in a closet, in a dark alley for all it mattered — get in, get off, get out… and yet.
And yet, here they are. In Atem’s bed, the big fancy one in the big fancy apartment that KaibaCorp pays for. (Luggage sits abandoned in the entryway, a trail of clothes leads down the hall, and it’s possible that maybe — just maybe — the Pharaoh’s month-long tournament circuit abroad had been about three weeks too long.)
Here they are. Their lips are dark and swollen from devouring each other’s faces, harsh and then soft and then harsh again, the rhythm of the Nile lapping against a riverbank. (They kiss like they’re drowning, gasping for air, tasting and tonguing and “I almost forgot how well you moan my name, Pharaoh” and “Remind me what that big mouth of yours is good for, thief.”)
Here they are. The smell of lotus and spice intermingles with musk and desire, the swirl of it hanging heady the air. It’s the way this bedroom has smelled for months now. (Slick bronze skin shimmers in the light of candles flickering low on the dresser, fingers intertwining and clutching tight as voices breathe “Beg me for it, Atem” and “Yes, Bakura, fuck, do that again —”)
Here they are. Over an hour in and still moving together, still wanting, still not satisfied. The sounds they make are a harmony of whispers and purrs and groans and shouts and whines. (It’s a reunion, a relief, a demand for undivided attention. It’s a thousand “I missed you”s that neither will say out loud, that stay trapped and burning in their throats, in their chests, in their bones.)
Here they are. And while they both know very well this probably isn’t what they should be doing with each other… it turns out, in the end, that they just aren’t built for casual sex.
Not mentally. (Atem doesn’t do furtive, Bakura doesn’t do trivial. Neither of them know how to want anything less than everything, how to be anything less than all-in.)
Not physically. (It takes a long time — a lot of lube, a lot of stretching — for Bakura to work his long, thick cock deep into Atem’s tight, compact body. To do so until Atem is filled completely in the way they both crave it, the way that makes their eyes roll back and their toes curl.)
Not emotionally. (They’re too old. Too tired. The road has been too long. They just want to enjoy themselves, and they want to take their goddamn time, and they want to lick and kiss and tease each other beforehand and bicker and cuddle and drift off next to each other afterwards.)
For Bakura, Atem is a drug. An addiction. There is a bottomless craving inside of him for that taste and touch and smell, a helpless yearning to be drunk on the affection of power incarnate. He can never control himself, never consider stopping, will never in a thousand lifetimes get enough.
And for Atem, Bakura is an anchor. A lifeline. The only other soul that feels real, the only other voice that speaks the tongue of his dreams, the only other face he can look into and know that his mind is not lost to the seeping poison spiral of insanity.
So, here they are, flushed and dripping and arching. Hot mouths and wandering hands, limbs wrapped around each other greedily, cursing and kissing and arguing and grinning.
In bed together, a king becomes a beggar and a pagan worships the gods.
And when they’re finally finished, collapsed and tangled and panting in a heap of bliss, Bakura decides it doesn’t matter in the slightest what they should be doing with each other. Nor does it matter whether the right words exist — in the old tongue or the new — to define this dangerous thing he feels fluttering in his chest.
All that truly matters is that nowadays, when Atem says home, he might not be referring to a palace.
And nowadays, when Bakura says fuck the gods, he might always be thinking of one in particular.
~Fin~