Title: After All
Author: Nina/TechnicolorNina
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Pairing/Characters: heartshipping (Ryou/Yuugi)
Word Count: 3 160
Story Rating: PG-13/T for mentions of violence and sex
Story Summary: Seven months after returning from Egypt, the gang has a sleepover. But it doesn't stay as silly as sleepovers normally do.
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise? Totally not mine.
Spoilers: For the end of the series.
Warnings: Eh. Blood?
Notes: I would like to take note that Yuugi and Ryou are both above the age of statutory consent in both their country of origin and my home state (hell, they might both be over the age of 18, I didn't bother checking Ryou's birthday). Also, in the Yu-Gi-Oh! most of you guys are probably familiar with, Ryou's eyes are brown. In the Toei YGO ("Season Zero"), however, his eyes are green. I like Toei-Ryou because he looks a bit less like a gigantic stuffed bear and more like a teenager. My personal Ryou, which is to say the one I see in my head, looks pretty much like Toei-Ryou with white hair instead of blue, so his eyes are green instead of brown. Take note.
Feedback: There may be something out there that's better than a review containing concrit, but if there is, I haven't found it yet. So if you have two minutes and you wouldn't mind? Please? Arigatou. (And concrit is cool. Flames are not.)
Special Thanks/Dedications: For T.K. Yuy. Just because.

After all the stops and starts
We keep coming back to these two hearts
Two angels who've been rescued from the fall
And after all that we've been through
It all comes down to me and you
I guess it's meant to be
Forever you and me
After all.
"After All," love theme from "Chances Are"

"No! No, stop!"

Jounouchi expected he'd be the first one awake; years of living with his father had given him the ability to go from fast asleep to fully conscious in a matter of seconds. He was close to right; Yuugi had gotten the lamp turned on and was scrambling out of his sleeping bag to shake Ryou's shoulder, but his legs were still tangled up in it.

"Stop! Yuugi!"

Yuugi grabbed Ryou's flailing hands and pinned them.

"Ryou, you're dreaming!"

Jounouchi was not quite far enough out of his sleeping bag to see Ryou's eyes snap open, but he didn't have to get any closer to hear when Ryou burst into tears. Anzu surfaced from the next sleeping bag over, scrubbing her eyes to wake herself. Yuugi pulled Ryou into his lap. Jounouchi felt his mouth fall open in surprise.

"Shhh. It's okay. It was just a dream." Yuugi ran soothing fingers through Ryou's hair. Ryou buried his face against Yuugi's neck. Yuugi looped an arm around Ryou's waist. Jounouchi couldn't hear Ryou's next words – they were muffled by tears and Yuugi's skin – but Yuugi either heard them perfectly or decided their exact content didn't matter, because he simply repeated himself.

"You're going to be all right now. Just calm down. It's okay."

Ryou whimpered. Yuugi stroked his hair.

"Shhhh."

Ryou's tears slowly shuddered to a halt. Yuugi continued his ministrations until Ryou's breath had mostly evened out, and only then did he speak again.

"Why don't you go wash up?"

Ryou nodded, pulled himself to his feet, and made for the bathroom halfway down the hall. Yuugi watched him go. Then he felt Jounouchi's eyes on the back of his neck, and swiveled.

"What?"

"What was that all about?"

"He had a nightmare, Jounouchi."

"You were petting him."

Yuugi's cheeks flushed. "He was upset. What do you expect me to do?"

Anzu also blushed. "Yuugi . . . "

Yuugi turned his eyes on her. Anzu shook her head. "Never mind. It's – "

"Go ahead and give me the third degree, why don't you?" Yuugi said. The flush was migrating slowly to the edge of his cheekbones, growing steadily darker as it did. "He had a nightmare. He needed a hug. I hugged him. End of story."

Anzu bit her lip. "Is that why you've been staying with him so much lately? Because he – "

"Not just staying," Jounouchi cut in. "Last week you ditched the beach to come over here. You didn't even have any plans over here. And then you guys decided we should have the sleepover here instead of at your house."

"Yeah, so? Ryou's got more space, and we don't have to worry about keeping it down after Jii-chan goes to bed. It makes more sense." Yuugi could feel himself starting to get mad and tried to stop. Yes, he'd been keeping secrets, it was true. But that wasn't any reason for Jounouchi to be -

"You guys never did anything like that before. We've always had movie nights at your place, except the one time your tape player broke and we all went to Anzu's." Jounouchi pulled himself the rest of the way out of his sleeping bag. "Are you fucking him? You are, aren't you?"

The dangerous dark-red glow in Yuugi's face spread out and turned into an all-over rosy flush. "Jounouchi!"

"Ever since we got back from Egypt you two've been wrapped up in this little bubble like the rest of us don't exist, and – "

"Jounouchi, stop," Anzu pleaded. Jounouchi ignored her.

"I'm sick of getting ditched all the sudden for someone you barely talked to before like you don't have any good reason to even remember we're here when you can't even give us a good reason why. I'm sick of having to chase you all over Domino if we all want to go out together somewhere because you're always out with Ryou. When did you stop calling him Bakura-kun, anyway? Or should that be how many times did you guys get it on before he asked you to – "

"We're only jacking each other!"

Yuugi's eyes went wide, and he covered his mouth with both hands. Far from being suffused in a blush, he'd suddenly gone so pale he looked almost white. Under other circumstances, the identical shocked expressions on Anzu's and Jounouchi's faces might have been funny. Honda rolled over and snored. Yuugi lowered his hands from his mouth. They were trembling.

"We're not having sex," he said. There was a pleading quality in his voice – please, can't we start this whole thing over? "He's kind of afraid to."

Jounouchi was the first one to recover. "And you – you're okay with that?"

Yuugi stared at him. "Jounouchi, please tell me you didn't mean what that sounded like you meant."

It was Jounouchi's turn to stare. "If all he's doing is something you could do yourself – "

The angry flush reappeared. "It's not about sex, Jounouchi. It never has been. And if you think that's what it takes to have a real relationship with somebody, then – "

"Guys, stop." Anzu again, trying to put herself between them. "Whether or not Yuugi's dating somebody isn't a reason to get in a fight."

"Anzu, he's – he's - accusing me of using Ryou for – I don't know – personal – what's that word, when you're really satisfied with something?"

"Gratification. And he wasn't accusing you of anything, Yuugi. Just – both of you, calm down, would you?"

"Anzu, I've stayed over at his house! We've shared a sleeping bag, for – "

Yuugi looked shocked, and angry, and hurt. "You didn't actually just say that, Jounouchi. I know you didn't."

"You - !"

"You actually - !"

"Guys! We're here to have fun, not rip each others' throats out," Anzu begged. "Don't fight."

It was the first time Anzu had ever seen Yuugi actually glare daggers at someone. "You don't have any idea what Ryou and I are doing together, Jounouchi. He didn't want to tell anybody because he was afraid of what you guys would say. And I can't really say I blame him, now."

Jounouchi's mouth shut, opened, and shut again. He looked something like a beached codfish.

"Ryou's smart, and he's funny, he's got the prettiest smile I've ever seen, and us being together has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not we're both guys or not – well, for Ryou it probably does a little, but I really don't care one way or the other. He wants me, and he needs somebody, and that's all I care about. You don't know what he's been through or what it took him to even ask me out, so before you decide all he's worth to you is insulting, you can just go spit."

Jounouchi's mouth flopped again. "Yuugi, I – "

"No. That hurt, Jounouchi. That really, really hurt. I kind of expected it a little from Honda, but not you." Yuugi's eyes did not fill with tears, but the very beginning warning edges of them crept up to cover the line where skin and pupil met. "He was hurt worse than you can even imagine. If I'd been him I probably would have gone crazy. I mean that. I don't think I'd be sane anymore. I'd be in some white room with people who fed me pills to keep me quiet. He had to live through something that bad. Is it so much to ask for you to be happy that he's happy?"

Jounouchi dropped his eyes to his hands. Yuugi did not look away from Jounouchi's face.

"Sorry."

Yuugi pushed his fringe out of his face and sighed. "I am, too. I shouldn't have yelled at you."

Jounouchi shook his head. "Don't worry about it." He looked up in time to see protest crossing Yuugi's face and spoke again to stop it. "I think I kind of deserved that."

It was Yuugi's turn to look down at his hands. "I still shouldn't have – "

"I said don't worry about it." Jounouchi scrubbed at the side of his face, embarrassed. "How did it happen, anyway? I mean, last thing I knew you guys started talking again after we got rid of Bak-"

"Don't say it." If Jounouchi had been Ryou, Yuugi's fingers would have been on his lips. "We don't call him that here."

"Huh?"

"The thief. We don't use his name here."

"Yuugi, you can't make someone disappear by not using their name. It doesn't work that way."

"It worked pretty well for Atem."

They all fell silent. Anzu was the first one to speak.

"That's why, isn't it? You've got something in common with him the rest of us can't." She looked away. Yuugi shrugged.

"That's why it started, I guess. It didn't end up that way."

Jounouchi frowned down the hallway. "He's been gone an awfully long time."

"He's probably cleaning his arms. Don't go after him."

"Huh?"

Yuugi sighed and shifted on Ryou's sleeping bag. "He stopped cutting his nails down to the quick because he was having a hard time doing his homework when his fingers were always sore, but that means when he scratches in his sleep he's cutting himself sometimes." There was a horrified pause before Yuugi continued. "It could be worse, really. Right after the other one left Ryou was going after his own face, not his arms. That's why he started cutting his nails down. He tried band-aids for awhile, but they kept slipping."

"He was clawing his face?"

Yuugi nodded. "He's doing better now than he was. We went out a couple of weeks ago and got him some kitchen knives so he doesn't have to buy pre-cut vegetables anymore. He wouldn't have been able to do it two months ago."

"Wait." Jounouchi held up his hands. "You mean he's been living here with no knives? How did he cook?"

"Not very well. The only stuff he really had to cook with were serving spoons. He was afraid to have anything sharp in the house." Yuugi stared at them defiantly, and this, at least, Jounouchi understood: make fun of him and this is the last time we all get together like this. Yuugi loved his friends, did not want to lose his friends, but he'd set himself the task of protecting Ryou, and that meant not abandoning Ryou because his friends teased him. Jounouchi rubbed the side of his face again. The defiance left Yuugi's eyes, and he only looked sad.

"That's why I've been staying over here so much. He's pretty much okay during the daytime – I mean, some stuff still scares him, but he's doing a lot better than he was – but he has some pretty bad nightmares. He said it helps when I'm here. He can tell."

"If he didn't have anything sharp in the house," Jounouchi said, very slowly, "then how did he live?"

"It's probably because he didn't have anything sharp around that he did live," Yuugi answered. "That was the big problem. If he let him - you know, the other one – do what he wanted, Ryou pretty much got left alone. If he tried to get in the way he ended up beating himself up. The other one would take control of his hands and feet, but leave Ryou on top to watch. To feel. He's got horror stories about staplers you probably don't want to know anything else about."

Anzu's eyes widened. "Staplers?"

Yuugi nodded. "That was the first thing to go after the knives. And then he stopped getting metal soup tins, because he couldn't find one of those can openers that don't leave an edge. He gave up on getting everything out of the house when it would have meant never sweeping the floor again. After he tried escaping into the church, you know. He thought he was going to bleed to death."

Anzu's mouth fell open. She covered it with her hand automatically as Jounouchi stared.

"You mean he – "

Yuugi put a finger against his lips and nodded toward the hallway. Ryou padded into sight, still rubbing at his eyes. They were slightly red, and Anzu had an idea he'd had a hard cry in the bathroom. He'd changed out of his pyjama top and into a T-shirt. Neither Jounouchi nor Anzu felt it a good idea to comment on the fresh pink lines sectioning his lower arms into small segments of unmarked skin. Yuugi smiled at him and patted the sleeping bag.

"Feel better?"

Ryou sat down next to him. "A little."

Yuugi pulled him close and stroked his hair. "Want me get you a cup of tea or something?"

Ryou shook his head against Yuugi's chest and, after a moment's hesitation, slid his arms around Yuugi's waist. Anzu extracted her legs from her sleeping bag and scooted across the floor to put her arms around Ryou's shoulders. Jounouchi sat and felt awkward. Then he headed for the kitchen to get Ryou a glass of milk. It wasn't the best thing in the world, but it was better than nothing. Ryou took it and drank when Jounouchi handed it to him.

"I can't believe Honda actually slept through that."

"Honda could sleep through nuclear war," Yuugi retorted. "Don't you remember the time we all stayed over at Anzu's, and her mum dropped a whole stack of dishes on the kitchen floor around six in the morning? It sounded like – okay, it sounded like a whole bunch of dishes being dropped on a floor, but it was loud."

Anzu's lips quirked. "He never even noticed. I remember that. I don't think you were there, Ryou."

Ryou shook his head. "I don't remember it."

Anzu found his hand and squeezed it. Ryou squeezed back. Then he yawned. Yuugi let his fingers trail through Ryou's hair one last time, and then he let his hand fall between Ryou's shoulderblades.

"We should probably get back to sleep. If we don't soon we never will."

Anzu and Jounouchi both nodded. Yuugi snagged his sleeping bag with his foot and pulled it over to Ryou's. Ryou whispered something neither Anzu nor Jounouchi was able to hear. Yuugi nodded and unzipped Ryou's bag. Ryou settled himself in it, and then Yuugi crawled in after him and zipped it up.

"Are you guys gonna have enough room?"

"We're small."

Jounouchi propped himself up on his elbows. "Yuugi, that's probably not something you want to be bragging about."

Yuugi's face underwent several interesting changes. Then he grabbed a pillow from the sofa and lobbed it in Jounouchi's general direction. It missed by a wide margin. Jounouchi snickered. Anzu sighed.

"You guys . . . "

"Okay, okay, I'll stop," Jounouchi said. "But come on, Anzu, he walked right into that."

Ryou curled up against Yuugi's side. Anzu, who'd spent a hard day first at school and then babysitting her next-door neighbor, was asleep almost at once. Jounouchi was awake a little longer.

"Yuugi . . . "

"Shh. It's okay." The rustle of a sleeping bag. "We talked about it."

"I think people fifty miles away know you talked about it."

A quiet snort of laughter. "I'm not that loud." A pause. "Am I?"

"I don't want you to end up alone because we're – "

"I won't. We won't. After all we've been through together I don't think any of them would ditch us over something like this."

"Nnnn."

"Ryou, that tickles."

"Sorry." Another rustle. "Yuugi?"

"Mmm?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"You know what."

"Mmm."

Jounouchi thought there might be more to the conversation, but if there was, he missed it; falling asleep was not particularly conducive to listening.

Honda's eyes were a pair of circles from a Twister board. "What – "

"Don't ask," Jounouchi advised him. "Let it go. Unless you want to be attacked by Hurricane Yuugi."

"I'll pass."

Anzu was still sleeping, curled up peacefully with her bag tucked around her. Ryou and Yuugi were also still sleeping, but this, at least, was worth some comment; the spaces between them were so small Jounouchi doubted even a credit card could have been slipped through, and at some point in the night Ryou had tucked his head neatly beneath Yuugi's chin. Yuugi had slipped his arms firmly around Ryou's waist and shoulders. If there had ever been a dictionary picture for "joined at the hip," Jounouchi thought, this would have been it.

Two pairs of eyes – one purple, one green – opened at almost exactly the same time. Had Anzu been awake, she would have found it adorable. Yuugi, the eternal morning person, wiggled out of the bag almost at once. Ryou yawned and rolled over and snuggled up against the pillow the pair of them had shared the night before. Yuugi ran his fingers though Ryou's hair.

"Hey. You. Time to get up."

Ryou whined.

"Aren't you just a ray of bright morning sunshine? C'mon, Ryou." Yuugi ran his fingers through Ryou's hair. Ryou made another noise of protest and buried his face in the pillow.

"Fine. More bathroom time for me." Yuugi glanced up and caught Jounouchi's eye. He winked impishly and made a show of getting up and heading for the hall. Ryou beat him there. Yuugi grinned at him. Ryou pouted.

"You – "

It was right about then that he woke up enough to realise Jounouchi and Honda were both standing behind him, wide awake, and that Anzu was in the process of joining them. He turned around slowly; if Honda's eyes had been a pair of Twister circles, then Ryou's were a pair of Simon platforms. Yuugi took his hand.

"Morning, guys."

Ryou didn't seem capable of saying anything. He looked terrified. Honda stared at them. Jounouchi did not grin, but a small smile formed on his face all the same. "Morning."

Ryou's eyes dropped to his feet. His fingers tightened around Yuugi's. Yuugi ran a comforting thumb over the back of Ryou's hand. Then he wiggled his fingers out of Ryou's.

"You were headed somewhere, right?"

Ryou's eyes widened again. Yuugi nodded toward the hall.

"Better hurry up before one of us pops a kidney or something."

And Ryou was gone.

Yuugi turned his eyes back toward the group sitting on their sleeping bags. Anzu was rubbing her eyes. Honda was staring at him. He pointed mutely down the hall, at Yuugi, back down the hall again.

"You - ?"

Yuugi nodded. Honda looked incredibly confused, but did as Jounouchi had suggested and let it go. Yuugi shrugged and headed for the kitchen.

"Anybody want toast?"

Jounouchi scrambled to his feet. Honda followed. Anzu shook her head - boys. When Ryou came back down the hall – dressed now for the day instead of in a pair of pyjama bottoms – Anzu simply nodded him toward the kitchen. Ryou went.

"If you guys can wait ten minutes I can make something better than toast."

Anzu smiled.

This sounded like it was looking up.