SW: I think I like the way this story is going so far.
Ryou: I get to see Yugi again!
Yugi: I get to see Ryou again!
SW: Yeah but remember you're still mad at Yami and Bakura is annoyed with Ryou for falling behind.
Ryou and Yugi: Oh yeah…
Thank you to samaurai (Yeah that's gonna change this chapter…), RowenaBasizaki (Thank you! And I'm pretty sure it'll all be ok in the end…maybe), Goshikku Hime wa Yami-san (Well, I didn't make it really obvious until the end so that's okay!), IlluminatedWord (I am so glad you like it! I love writing this and the reviews make it even better!), and Themidnightvampress (Why thank you!) for reviewing!
Happy reading!
Yugi laughed, forgetting why he was there in the first place and pushed Ryou back so they were sitting across from of each other. They stared, taking each other in, before giggling and hugging each other tightly.
"What are you doing here, Ryou?" Yugi smiled brightly, trying to stop laughing happily from seeing his brother.
"Me? What are you doing here?!" Ryou covered his mouth to hide a giggle. "And why are you soaked?"
That changed Yugi's mood. He looked down and fiddled with the edge of his shenti. "Yugi-kun?" Ryou pulled Yugi's head up by the chin and looked him in the eyes. "What happened?"
"It was…well…" Yugi shifted uncomfortably and smiled a little, shaking his head. "It doesn't matter now."
"Ryou! Where the hell are you?" Ryou gasped and looked behind him. There was rustling and Ryou gripped Yugi's arms as Bakura walked through the bushes. "There you are! What are you-" Bakura took in the boy Ryou was clinging to and his eyes narrowed, suspicious, "Who's this?"
Ryou laughed and looked between the two.
Just as he was about to reply there was more movement next to Bakura and Yugi's eyes widened as Yami appeared. "There you are, Yugi! I wanted to say-Bakura?" He noticed the man standing next to him, who crossed his arms and smirked at the man. "What are you doing out here?"
"Trying to get away from my insane, adoptive father, but Ryou here got distracted." He motioned to the albino boy clinging to the one Yami was looking for. "I'm guessing you're looking for his distraction?"
Yami nodded his head and he recognized the albino as the one Yugi had said goodbye to on the camel. "Yeah, they know each other. They're brothers."
Bakura's shoulders relaxed a little. "They sure are acting a lot closer than brothers." The two had been speaking to each other in hushed tones, touching one another, and completely ignoring their look-a-likes.
"Ryou, I missed you so much!" Yugi exclaimed and tackled Ryou to the ground in a hug.
Ryou squealed and pushed Yugi off him. "Nii-san! You know there are other people here!"
Yugi looked confused for a moment before he smacked himself on the forehead. "I completely forgot!" He looked up sheepishly and stood slowly to stand before Yami. He fidgeted with his hands and his next words, which Yami thought would be anger-filled, shocked the man in front of him. "I'm sorry for exploding at you, Yami. I shouldn't have, it was uncalled for."
Yami lifted up Yugi's chin with his finger, "It's alright, Yugi, I should've apologized before for not getting the slut off me sooner."
Bakura gagged and Ryou cooed when Yugi latched on to Yami and they turned towards the two, smiling brightly. Yami nodded to Bakura, "Trying to run away again, huh?"
Ryou looked up at Bakura from his spot kneeling on the ground. "Run away?"
Bakura glared at the ground and, though he would never admit it, a blush flitted across his face. "Well, I couldn't just leave you here all alone to be punished by my father."
Yami smirked, "What, and you were gonna leave me behind?"
"Well, I'm sorry Mr. Goody Two Shoes. Forgive me if I didn't want to bring more people than necessary."
Yami rolled his eyes and wrapped an arm around Yugi's shoulders, causing the boy to blush, "It's alright, I wouldn't want to leave Yugi anyway."
Ryou swallowed and stood, walking over to Yugi. He looked down at his hands and sniffled. "Bye, Yugi."
Yugi blinked then realized what was happening. Ryou was running away and he wasn't going with. He smiled lightly and wrapped Ryou in a hug. "Be safe, Otouto-san."
Ryou let out a small sob into Yugi's shoulders and Bakura groaned and smacked his forehead. "Fine! A month from now. We will run away. Together. All four of us."
Ryou screamed in happiness and tore himself from Yugi to latch himself on Bakura, who growled and stared at the person hugging him. Awkwardly patting the boy's head, he looked at the snickering Yami. "Shut up, Yami."
The man shrugged and turned to leave, taking Yugi with him, who was grinning and waving over his shoulder. "See you in a month, Bakura."
Bakura rolled his eyes and pried Ryou off him. He noticed the tears streaking down his face and groaned. "What are you crying about now?"
Ryou laughed a little and wiped away his tears. "They're happy tears, Bakura…Thank you."
Bakura started to walk back to the house, his hands clasped behind his head. "Yeah, sure, whatever."
Ryou laughed and ran up behind Bakura, smiling as they walked through the back door they had tried to escape from.
"There they are!" As they stepped through the doorway, however, guards came from everywhere and grasped at both boys.
Yugi sighed and cuddled up to Yami, smiling in content as they walked through the night. "Thank you for forgiving me, Yami."
Yami smirked and placed a light kiss on Yugi's head. "Anytime, Yugi. Thank you for not staying mad."
The boy looked down with a blush and fiddled with his hands until they reached the kitchens. Yami sighed when Mana wasn't there, he would have to deal with her anger tomorrow then. "Come on, Yugi. Let's go to bed."
Yugi nodded and broke away from Yami, giggling and running forward. Yami shook his head and followed at a walk.
When he entered the room he was surprised to find Yugi curled up in bed, but on his. Yugi snuggled in deeper when he noticed that Yami had entered, daring the man to make him leave.
Yami looked up to the ceiling and prayed for strength, before walking and lying next to Yugi, who immediately latched himself onto him. Yami swallowed roughly as Yugi intertwined their legs, pulling them closer to each other. Yugi smirked impishly, not knowing why Yami was suddenly so stiff, but he found it funny. Giggling some more, he buried his head in Yami's chest, and promptly fell asleep, missing the blush on Yami's face.
Ryou gasped and struggled against the two men holding him, noticing that most of the guards went after Bakura, who was putting up much more of a fight. A knife clattered to the ground, having been removed from Bakura. Footsteps echoed down the hallway where they were standing and everyone looked up as Gozaburo Kaiba walked towards them.
Bakura immediately started to struggle again, but was forced to his knees with a strong grip on his hair and a knee on his back.
"Well, well. What have we here?" Gozaburo stepped up to Bakura, gripping his chin and making the boy look him in the eye. "Another escape attempt?" He put more emphasis on attempt and moved on to walk to Ryou, who was staring fixedly at the ground. "But why attempt to bring your new slave? What possible benefit could this" He gripped Ryou's arm and squeezed, causing Ryou to whimper and Bakura to jerk harder against the four holding him, "weak thing bring to you?" Gozaburo stepped away and tapped his chin in thought. "Oh, I know!" He walked back to Ryou and yanked his hair back to force him to look up, and Ryou held back a scream. He forced Ryou to look at Bakura, who was staring with hate-filled eyes at his adoptive father. "You've fallen for this runt, haven't you? Oh, that's splendid!" He let go of Ryou and clapped his hands together. "Bring them to the dungeons! We are going to make sure that Bakura never runs away again!"
Ryou sobbed as he was shoved forward and through a hallway he had never been before, and was forced down a staircase that they reached at the end of it. The place was dimly lit and there were two dank, smelly cells side-by-side that were only separated by a row of bars.
Bakura was thrown into one, and he launched himself at the door, jangling it, hoping to find that it wasn't locked.
Ryou screamed as he was thrown in the other, but he wasn't left alone. One guard stayed with him and forced to stand from where he fell when he was pushed in. The guard tied his wrists with rope, and then hooked that rope to a piece of metal on the back wall of the cell. Ryou could barely stand flat-footed, and he could feel his arms start to hurt from the strain. He turned his head sideways and saw Bakura staring back at him, his place in the cell over giving him a perfect view of whatever was going to happen.
Gozaburo then walked into the cell and Ryou flinched as he heard something slap against the floor.
"No, Father, you can't!" Bakura gripped the bars that separated the cells and watched as Gozaburo walked towards the shaking Ryou. He hoped that by calling the man father he would appease him to stop.
Ryou started to hyperventilate, figuring out what was happening immediately. They had used a whip to punish criminals in his village, but they had always had their clothes on. He could only imagine the pain he would feel on his bare back, the only clothing he had was the shenti.
The whip slapped the ground again and Ryou squeaked. "Bakura." He whispered, looking into the eyes of the man next to him. "I'm scared."
Bakura swallowed and anger flowed through him. "Don't be, you'll be okay." As soon as he finished that, however, Ryou let out a scream and Gozaburo looked in satisfaction at the line of red that had followed his whip.
He struck again, causing Ryou to let out another pained scream. "This is what will happen every time you run, dear Bakura, whether you leave him here or take him with you." He struck twice more. "Whenever you are caught." Another lash. "And you will be." Three more. "You will be made to watch this." Ryou screamed again, a heart-wrenching sound that was filled with absolute agony.
Gozaburo kept striking, and it wasn't long until Ryou no longer had strength to scream, and had simply went limp against the hook that was holding him up. The man struck once more, before smirking at the defeated body before him. He threw the whip off to the side and turned his smirk to Bakura. "You are often quite the escape artist. Let's see if you can get out of this in time to save your slave." With that he walked out and up from the dungeons.
Bakura released the death grip he had on the bars in front of him, and franticly started to look for a way out.
"Ba-ku…ra" The man jerked at his name and rushed over to where he saw Ryou looking at him in half-lidded eyes. "I…love you." The boy let his head fall forward and Bakura's eyes widened.
Nervously cracking his knuckles, he turned and swept his eyes over the cell again, his gaze falling on a loose brick. Prying it from the wall, he went over to his door cell. He grunted as he clanged it against the lock, hoping to break it enough to allow the door to open. He felt his anger at his father and his helplessness grow and he let it flow through his veins.
Suddenly, the door flew open and Bakura rushed forward, not noticing the receding tendrils of shadows that had flown to the door, unlocking it. He stepped into the unlocked cell next to him and stared at the bloodied back of Ryou.
He ran to him and unhooked his arms, sighing in relief when he heard the resulting groan. That meant Ryou was still alive. He quickly lifted Ryou's arms over his shoulders, leaving them tied for the moment so that he could keep the arms wrapped around his neck. He gripped Ryou's legs and turned, hoisting the boy up in a piggyback.
He ran to his room, knowing that none of the healers here would want to heal someone punished by Gozaburo, and delicately placed Ryou on his stomach on the bed and grabbed a knife from the bedside table to remove the rope around Ryou's wrists.
He bit his lip at the wounds, some were still freely bleeding. He grabbed a bowl and filled it with water, placing it next to Ryou before running off again to grab towels, both dry and damp.
He quickly cleaned the lashes, knowing how to from past wounds. Once he got rid of all the dried blood he could, he rushed off to grab bandages he kept hidden in his closet, and tenderly wrapped Ryou's back, having to carefully lift him off the bed to get the bandages under him.
Bakura sighed and collapsed next Ryou when he was done, and looked at the closed lids of the boy next to him. The eyes behind those lids flitted back and forth, as if dreaming. Right before Bakura let himself fall into sleep, he heard something that made his heart hurt, he knew who it was and the meaning he held in Ryou's heart.
"Akefia…" Bakura turned away from Ryou onto his side and crossed his arms, telling himself to fall asleep. "Where are you? Malik? Help me!" Ryou started to move on the bed, and Bakura immediately turned back, forcing Ryou to stay still so he wouldn't hurt his back more. "Why are you doing this? Akefia!" Ryou whimpered before he sighed and fell into a deeper sleep.
Bakura growled and lay down again, making sure that there was no movement next to him before he too fell asleep. Ryou shifted again and smiled in his sleep. Sighing lightly, he whispered one last name that was missed by the sleeping man next to him. "Bakura…"
Mana rushed into Yami and Yugi's room before dawn, taking a moment to coo at their position, before running forward and yanking the blanket off them. "Get up! Master Pegasus has called all the slaves for an announcement!"
Both boys sluggishly woke up, but jerked apart when they realized where they were. Mana laughed lightly and threw two shentis at them. "Come on! I'll explain on the way!"
As they ran through the hallways to the dining hall, Mana told them what was happening. "Master Pegasus has stated that he has to make an announcement. It must be very important for him to do this. The last time it happened was when he had to say his wife, Cecelia, died. Poor man, he never fully recovered."
Yugi nodded and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes and they rushed to the dining hall. He reached over and grabbed Yami's hand once they stopped in front of the grand doors, and the man smiled at him.
Mana pushed open the doors and they walked in together.
SW: I have absolutely no idea why this chapter went where it went.
Marik: *crossing arms* Probably because your psycho.
*staring all around*
Marik: What? *smirks* I can't be the only crazy one here.
Malik: Yes, you can. We only need one crazy person.
Marik: You know you love me.
SW: *gagging at the making out sounds coming from behind her* OK…so yeah.
Review please!