Of Zombies and Card Games
Chapter 21
Bakura didn't stop running until he'd put a good fifteen miles between himself and that arrogant, meddlesome duo. He was furious, and he wanted to murder Kaiba purely out of spite. However, that would be unnecessary waste now, as satisfying as it may be. The living usually made better pawns than the deceased, even if they didn't like or trust you. As he had stupidly just lost Jounouchi's confidence in addition to Kaiba's, homicide would preserve him nothing. He'd have to lay low for a while, perhaps actually come up with a final game plan this time, rather than deal with everything on whim.
"Sleep well princess?" Jounouchi asked sweetly when Kaiba rolled into consciousness late the next morning. Kaiba glared, and made a rather obscene gesture for someone with his usual prudish formalities, but offered no verbal retort. Truthfully, he felt much better, though his head still ached and his throat was painfully sore.
"You stay up all night?" Kaiba rasped, and Jou let his grin fade a bit. He'd been beaten up a lot in his life, but he'd never been strangled like that. Must have been terrifying. Sure, Jou had almost drowned once, but while that had been just a bit scary it wasn't exactly painful. No damage lasting more than a few moments after breaking surface.
"Had to make sure you didn't stop breathing or something," Jounouchi answered, attempting to retain the light humor that was most comfortable for both of them. "Bakura did a pretty good job of making you forget how that whole inhale deal worked for awhile."
Kaiba actually laughed, in spite of himself. Instantly regretting it as it hurt like hell, he leaned back against a large boulder, massaging his neck lightly to see if that would ease the pain.
"Sorry," Jounouchi sheepishly apologized; he'd refrain from making Kaiba laugh or do anything else until it could be managed without spasms of pain. "Here," Jounouchi said, handing Kaiba a canteen form of the packs they carried. "Drink it slowly though or else you'll just make it worse," he admonished as Kaiba snatched the container away.
"Yea, yea," he whispered, talking small swallows of the reasonably cool liquid. At that moment it was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted, and he relished the soothing trickle down the back of his throat. With a grateful nod he passed the canteen back to Jounouchi, who took a few small sips himself before packing the thermos away.
"What's the plan now?" Jou asked, climbing to his feet, keeping one eye on Kaiba as the taller man did the same. He still wasn't entirely convinced the brunette was truly fine, and he wasn't about to trust that he'd be given verbal warning of any change in stasis.
Kaiba massaged his throat as he assessed his balance. When everything seemed to be in fairly decent order he addressed the question posed to him. Honestly he wasn't sure of what an end goal should be anymore.
"Guess we keep searching for Atemu? And anyone else who might be out there," Seto answered after a few moments pause, starting to move in the direction opposite from the one Bakura took off in. He may still be angry, his pride seriously affronted, but he wasn't suicidal. The white haired man would have to be dealt with at some point certainly, however now was not the time.
"Hopefully that anyone else won't try and kill us," Jou chuckled. Reflecting on their time with Bakura, he hesitated before asking, "You think…I…he said things, umm, never mind man." Jounouchi couldn't for the question, couldn't allow that spark of hope to flutter back, it'd kill him to have to suffer its evaporation all over again. Even if it had all been a lie, it didn't mean something equally horrible hadn't occurred.
Seto understood though, but there was no comforting answer, at least not one that wouldn't be at risk of being false. So to put it bluntly yet honestly, he replied, "we can't change the past, and it'll serve us nothing to dwell on the unknown. Let's just focus on right now and what we have."
"A sack of apples, endless miles of sand and some interesting sunburns and tan lines?" Jou asked, yet with a bit of his original mirth restored.
"Exactly," Kaiba said with a good natured smirk. That decided they passed on, focusing only on each step as they took it. The sun was scorching, their bodies throbbing, and they were more clueless on where they were headed then they were the day before. Yet, for the first time in a long time, they were both moderately content.
AN:
This is a replacement chapter as I realise when I first uploaded it the entire last sentence was missing (a glaring error indeed). However, as most of my original author's note was just copious apologies and excuses I see no need to type it back up.
Re-reading this story to continue writing a few years later is proving to be painful, but barring instances of actually missing chapter content I'm not going to bother with edits at this stage.