Okies, I gots a random idea that's been hopping around in my head *catches plot bunny and huggles*
Bakura: Oh joy. And can you please not do that? It's creepy.
Ryou: I think it's cute! *huggles another plot bunny*
Bunnies: Squeak! *tries to get away*
Uhm, that's bunny for 'read please!' and...yeah. *walks away with bunny*
Chapter 1: Antidote for the Pain
The top closed on the now empty Advil bottle with a sad snap.
White bangs floated into the air for a moment on a breath before they were pushed away from glazed brown eyes.
'You need to go to the hospital' a voice in the back of his head ordered. Ryou ignored it. This voice was a memory—no, a mockery—of the voice that used to live there. Yami Bakura never talked to him that way. This voice spoke softly but Bakura would have yelled at him for endangering the body. 'You shouldn't have taken that many!' OK, that sounded a bit more like him. Not enough, though.
Ryou shook his head to stop the thoughts. Maybe he should get another bottle on the way to the park.
Deciding that that was a good idea, he pocketed the empty bottle—already thinking of what he could use it for now that it wasn't holding any pills—and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge.
He passed the store, but it was closed.
"Darnit," he muttered, still walking. Oh well, the Advil wasn't working as well today. Maybe he should look for something stronger... The pharmacy down the road had several types of pain pills, so why not go there?
'Go to the park first' the voice said—no, pleaded. Yeah, it pleaded Ryou to go to the park instead of the pharmacy.
"But if I go to the store, it won't hurt," the whitenette replied softly. He didn't know what hurt, he just knew that it started with a dull ache in his chest That he could deal with. But then it would become a not-so-dull throbbing and burning every time he took a breath. The burning would spread to his arms and legs before giving him really bad headaches that made him pass out half the time. Taking painkillers was the only way Ryou could find that took the pain away to just the dull ache. Sometimes it would take it all away, but Ryou didn't want to take it all at once. That would be stupid. What if he needed them later?
'Go to the park first' the voice repeated.
"Fine," the boy muttered softly, changing his course. It was an ingrained habit to go to the park while Bakura was gone. That was where he waited for him to come back.
But was he going to come back this time?
"Of course he is," Ryou scolded quietly. "He promised."
The voice didn't say anything as Ryou sat on the swing. In a few kicks, he was swinging nicely. He ignored a certain taller-than-his-'brother' leather-clad teen with wild hair who was walking by. It wasn't fair that Yugi could keep his yami while Ryou was left with nothing. Not even the Millennium Ring survived as a souvenir, you know, something to remember everything by. But the Puzzle still hung around Atemu's neck, resting on his chest.
He wondered if Yugi knew where the Pharaoh was, and if the two still had that old bond now that they had their own bodies. Could they still communicate telepathically?
His silent question was answered when the Pharaoh suddenly laughed at nothing. Ryou's eyes moved toward the sound. His soft white hair moved into his line of sight, like it was saying 'no, don't look', but when it fell back down the boy saw that Atemu was waving.
On the way back downward, Ryou let one hand off the chain to wave at the yami.
The welcoming look changed to one of concern when crimson and brown eyes met. The brown eyes tore themselves away.
"Bakura-kun, are you h—" Yami started before changing what he was going to say. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Ryou said when the swing dipped back down. Yami stood by the swingset, smartly standing far enough away that he wouldn't get kicked.
"You don't look fine." Ryou didn't answer. He knew he didn't look fine. His hair was a mess, his eyes were still a little red from crying, heck, with all these problems, he wouldn't be surprised if Atemu had thought he was Bakura.
'You are Bakura, silly' the voice cooed. It meant that his name was Bakura. Ryou knew that. Bakura had said that very thing several times.
'That's not what I meant.'
'But it's the truth.'
Ryou ignored the voice in his head, knowing he was just going crazy from being alone for so long. How long has it been? A little over two months? Feels so much longer...
"Bakura-kun?" The brown-glazed eyes turned to the Pharaoh. "What have you been doing to yourself?"
"I haven't been doing anything."
'LIES!'
'Would it kill you to shut up?' Ryou thought pleasantly. The voice didn't say anything. 'Gods, I really am going crazy.'
A smaller version of Atemu ran over.
"Bakura-kun!" he squeaked. "We've been looking everywhere for you!" Ryou blinked.
"You have?"
"Yeah! We went by your house a bunch of times, but you were never home," the shorter boy explained while Ryou kept swinging.
"Sorry," the whitenette said when he was close enough to them.
"I'll go get the others!" Yugi said before running back the way he came.
Atemu watched his light run off. Ryou felt a twinge of jealousy. He and Bakura had never gotten to get that close. Sure, they knew the basics about each other—enough to know what they had in common, at least.
Ryou suddenly felt better, well, a little sick to be honest, but the pain was going away rather quickly.
Maybe the Advil was enough. It sure felt like it had been enough now.
Red eyes appeared by a bush off to the side. Only a few more minutes and they could meet up with the brown ones they're looking for. They started forward, until they noticed that another pair of red eyes was watching the brown ones. The ones in the bush narrowed a little, but were soon widened again. The brown eyes were flying too high up. They only did that when—
Realization dawned on the red eyes.
Ryou felt his hands slip. He couldn't hold on to the chains anymore. He felt so…free.
He'd felt this way once before… And after that he'd met and got beaten up by Bakura for scaring him so badly. That had been a little while before he had come to Domino, now that he thought about it.
He felt the gravity weighing down on him. He heard his hair flapping against his skin. He had been swinging pretty…
Atemu watched in horror as the whitenette that his Aibou thought of as a friend started to fall forward in the swing.
"Bakura!" he yelled—deciding that honorifics would take too long at the moment—as he ran forward to try to catch the boy.
"RYOU!" shouted an all-too-familiar voice. Yami whirled around in time to see a boy about Ryou's age with tanned skin and white hair running towards the falling boy.
The tanned boy managed to catch Ryou, his limp body draped in his arms. He gently turned Ryou over in and laid him on the ground, feeling for a pulse. He looked up, his red eyes filled with anger and—dare he say it?—panic.
"What the Hell are you doing! Call a Ra-damned ambulance already!" the boy growled out, keeping his voice steady. Yami could only nod dumbly and pull out the cell phone Grandpa had given him. While Yami explained what he knew of the situation, the tanned boy started CPR on the eighteen-year-old, who had stopped breathing.
"What the hell did you take this time?" the boy muttered as he pressed on Ryou's chest. Surely Yami didn't just hear that Bakura-kun had done this to himself? "Come on, Ry… just breathe…" The Advil bottle rolled out of his pocket, surrounded by the receipt. He just looked at it before swearing loudly. The Pharaoh picked it up and was surprised at the fact that the bottle was empty. And the receipt was from that morning.
Yami had several questions for the boy, but the most important wouldn't be answered until the ambulance got there.
It was an agonizing ten minutes before the truck arrived, sirens blaring.
Atemu climbed in with the tanned boy, not wanting to leave him around people who didn't know what he was and what he could do. They had Ryou hooked up to a breathing machine and tied down so that the bumps didn't affect him while the other teen talked to the paramedics about Ryou. The Pharaoh could hardly believe what he was hearing. He could also barely believe that these seats didn't have seatbelts. There were far too many bumps on this ride for his tastes.
"So," the paramedic started, checking Ryou's vitals. She turned to the tanned boy. "Just who are you to him?"
"His brother, Akefia," the tanned boy answered. "I was in Egypt with our father for a few months and I only just got home. I told him to wait for me at the park by our house, but..." the boy trailed off, looking at the whitenette. Atemu stayed quiet.
"Is he an addict, or—?" Akefia shook his head.
"He claims to have these pains sometimes—usually when he's been left alone for a while. Ry always said that the pain pills worked, so I thought that he only took the recommended amount. He never just takes them to take them."
"So not an addict," she wrote it down on a clipboard, "that's good. Once we get to the hospital, we can get those pills out of his system." Akefia nodded and leaned back against his chair, the bumps on the road not affecting him. He'd ridden way too many horses for it to bother him. "Such pretty hair too," the nurse muttered as she checked Ryou's vitals again before going up to talk to the driver.
"What is going on here, Bakura?" the Pharaoh whispered.
"I'll tell you once Ry's better. Promise," the tanned whitenette answered. It wasn't until Bakura had turned away from him that he noticed that there was a scar on his face.
"Where'd you—"
"When Ryou's better." Bakura's eyes were trained on the machine that monitored Ryou's heart rate. Yami grabbed the chair as the truck hit a rather large bump. The heart rate spiked for a moment but went back down once the road smoothed out. The nurse came back to talk to Atemu about the boy.
Yami gave the name 'Atemu Motou'. He explained what he saw happen. Akefia just kept praying under his breath that Ryou would be alright.
A few hours after they had arrived at the Emergency Room, the nurse came back for them with the doctor.
"Mr. Bakura?" the doctor called. Bakura cringed at the title.
"Right here," he waved. The nurse looked up and couldn't help but stare. Bakura's shirt was skin-tight and showed off all of his muscles. He wore shorts, too, so his long legs were bare from the knee to the sneakers he was wearing.
"Well, your brother is doing very well, considering. He had taken the bulk right before he went to the park, it seems. We just pumped his stomach of the pills and now he's resting. You can stay until he wakes up if you like," the doctor announced. Atemu couldn't help but feel relieved at the news. "Just follow the nurse, son."
Bakura nodded and stood up. Atemu watched as the two people walked to whichever room Ryou was in.
"Motou, right?" Yami looked up, startled.
"Y-yes sir." The doctor gave a gentle smile.
"We called your grandfather. He's coming to pick you up in about ten minutes. Ryou's door is just down the hall," he said, directing the boy.
When Yami walked in, Bakura was sitting next to the bed where a certain whitenette lay unconscious. A limp, pale thin hand was currently held in a pair of strong tanned ones. The nurse was walking out when Atemu walked in. She gave the boy a squeeze on the shoulder as she passed. Yami took a seat that was by the window.
"What did they say about him?" the Pharaoh asked, forgetting his questions, and the silence uncomfortable. Bakura took a breath.
"That it was a good thing we were there. He's in one of those coma things right now, but he should be waking up soon," he replied, looking really guilty.
"So we wait, then." And the silence continued.
For about five minutes before the usually hyper Atemu-look-alike walked in with his grandfather. Yami stood up, catching Akefia's attention for a moment. Yugi froze when he saw the tanned boy sitting next to the bed.
"Ba-Bakura-san," the boy stammered out, recognizing the eighteen year old boy holding his friend's hand. Bakura didn't say anything to him. Yami quickly picked up a sheet of paper and a pen from the table beside Ryou's bed and wrote something on it.
"Here, call when if you need anything," Atemu said, pushing the paper at the teen. A nod was what he got in response. Bakura's thumb moved across the back of the pale hand as his other hand tucked the paper away in a pocket.
"Pharaoh?" Yugi asked, not understanding what had happened.
"Just trust me, Aibou."
"I do."
"Well, I think we ought to go home now, don't you?" Grandpa suggested. Bakura ignored him while the Pharaoh and his mini-me nodded.
Yami took another look at the sleeping boy on the bed.
"I'll come back tomorrow, if you want," he said to the Egyptian. The red eyes turned to him for a moment before an 'okay' came from them. Yami nodded and left.
Welp, there you go! Random two-shot-ness is rampant!
Ryou: *whining* What did I do to deserve being a coma? *holds bunny close and cries*
Bakura: I would never do that! Especially around the Pharaoh!
Ryou and Bakura: *Continue whining and ranting*
Oh stop it! It's not like I'm ending it here!
Ryou: *stops whining* Uhm, review please? I'll make sure she updates really soon?
Bakura:*is still ranting about hating the Pharaoh and stuff*
A/N 2 Sorry I haven't been updating/posting anything. I've been away from any Internet that lacked parental controls, so… yeah. I'll post the second chappy later.