Fate: I liked writing this chapter. I remember it well.
Disclaimer: FEED, MY CHILDREN! FEEEEEED!
[3] In Which Jounouchi Plays Doctor
Jounouchi was sauntering back home from an eventful night out when he tripped over an unconscious form lying in the road.
"Bloody drunks!" he yelped, picking himself up from where he'd sprawled on the sidewalk and rubbing his face irately with scraped-up hands. He turned back to give the unconscious form a piece of his mind, though he could hardly spare it, and froze with his mouth open wide enough to catch an entire hive of Africanized honeybees.
He closed his mouth with some effort, though not without a few undignified squeaky noises, at the sight of the blood pooled under the person curled on the ground.
Maybe they got hit by a car! Jounouchi thought wildly. Should I move them? If only there were a proper streetlight around here, and then I could see what had happened! He glanced around. No cars. No sign of a crash. But I'd hardly have expected anyone to stick around after doing this.
Blood was patterned down the sidewalk as though someone had staggered along it with bloody feet. And they probably did, Jou reminded himself with a shudder. Maybe they got hit a while back and came here. Steeling himself against nausea, horror, and more squeaky noises, he forced himself to move closer and kneel next to the person in a fetal position on the sidewalk. He could make out longish hair and a teenaged, though muscled, physique. And that was about it.
"Dammit!" Jou cursed, standing again with a rock in his hand. "Turn on, why don't you?" he screamed at the dead streetlight, hurling the rock at it. It nicked the edge of the lamp, which promptly flickered on.
"I'm good," Jounouchi said smugly, then looked down at the crumpled figure. There was no mistaking the untidy silver-white hair or the delicately boned face pressed to the pavement. "Ryou!" Jounouchi immediately dropped to his knees again and rolled the boy over without thinking. "Oh my God, Ryou!"
The unconscious boy was covered in scratches and bruises, and his black shirt was torn on the side, allowing Jounouchi a good view of a nasty bruise surrounding badly torn skin. It looks like he really did get a glancing blow off a car. But...wait a second. Jounouchi's eyes narrowed. Black shirt? Black jeans? Bare feet? Silver cuffs on his wrists? Pink scissors in his left fist? What the...ohhh, shit. A very unsavory thought popped into Jounouchi's head. He took a deep breath, then brushed at the left temple of the unconscious boy. There was a slight scratch, nothing more. Nothing like the nasty wound he'd dressed not five hours ago. And the boy's ankle was also normal, without showing any signs of swelling or bandaging. Shit, shit, shit, shit! Jounouchi raved internally. My God! It is him! Jou sat back on his heels nervously, trying not to shake. His yami...what's happened to him? Where's Ryou?
As though in answer to his fervent prayers, the boy on the pavement stirred and groaned, shielding his dark eyes from the blindingly bright streetlight, dropping the scissors as he did so. "So bright..." he murmured hoarsely. "The light...not the light..." He slumped back to the sidewalk again with a sigh, his eyes sliding closed again. "Not...light..."
Jou thought about that for a second. It could have been a plea to shut off the streetlight. Or it could have meant that something very bad had happened to Ryou. Jounouchi never shied at taking risks, but he wasn't about to let this one by.
Jou squared his shoulders and picked up the scissors, tucking them away in a pocket. Ryou's yami may have given everyone hell, but he was suffering now, and he was damned if he wasn't at least going to try and get some information out of him about Ryou's whereabouts and physical condition. And he might as well tape the boy up, too.
Sighing, Jounouchi carefully scooped the bloodied yami into his arms and stood up experimentally. He wasn't savagely attacked by any number of Duel Monsters or stabbed in the ribs. With this encouraging result, he began making tracks for his empty house, trying not to hurt Ryou's yami too much on the way.
He opened the door with his foot and kicked it shut, hopping in place as he wrenched off his shoes and tried not to drop the unconscious boy. Then he promptly laid Ryou's yami on the couch and bolted for the bathroom. Let's see, I'll need antiseptic, about twenty million Band-Aids, a couple gauze pads, lots of medical tape...I wonder if I've still got a cold pack in the freezer? Oh, and definitely water and a washcloth. That blood's grossing me out. Eeeew.
When he returned laden down with pharmaceutical supplies, his new patient was again blinking in the bright lights and stirring fitfully. Jounouchi carefully turned the lamp so that it wasn't shining right into the boy's eyes and began cleaning off the cuts on his face.
"What are you doing to me?" Ryou's yami asked, still sounding like he'd lost his voice by running.
"Taking care of you," Jounouchi replied coolly. "I patched up Ryou earlier, though knowing him, he would've denied talking to me to keep me safe from you. But when I see anyone lying half-dead in the road, I'm going to see what I can do for them. I think you got clipped by a car, so I was worried about you."
"You were worried about me?" Ryou's yami demanded.
"I'm actually worried about Ryou having a heart attack over you coming back like that and him not knowing how to take care of you," Jounouchi corrected himself.
Ryou's yami sighed and closed his eyes, relaxing back onto the couch with a tormented look on his face. "He wouldn't. Not anymore."
Jounouchi raised his eyebrows and moved on to the boy's left arm. It bore the same kind of carved marks as the rest of him. "What made these?" he asked to get his mind off of Ryou's yami's unsettling comments about Ryou.
"I jumped through a second-story window," Ryou's yami said blandly.
Jounouchi was stunned for several reasons. The first reason was that Ryou's yami was being so open and un-hostile. Mostly his previous encounters with said yami had been full of "BWAHAHAHA! TASTE MY WRATH, MORTAL WEAKLINGS!". The second reason was that Ryou's yami had jumped through a second-story window. "A closed one?"
"What, do they come in other variants?" Ryou's yami asked impatiently.
"It could have been an open window."
There was a long pause in which Ryou's yami glared at Jounouchi with enough anger to melt steel. Jou rebutted with an ultranaïve 'you said something?' look. Both seemed to have some practice behind their respective looks. Finally Jou looked away before Ryou's yami could morph from garden-variety yami to "I WILL SUCK YOUR SOUL OUT THROUGH A TOOTHPICK!" yami and said, "Okay, so you jumped through a closed window and got hit by a car. Was there a reason, or were you just feeling suicidal?"
"Suicidal?" Ryou's yami repeated incredulously.
"Yeah. You know. 'Tra la la, oh look, life sucks, I don't have all the Millennium Items, the world can go to hell, I'm going to make a contract with a crazy blonde in blood on my arm, oh look, pretty birdie!'" Jounouchi explained.
This time the murderous look seemed, if possible, to have gotten even worse.
"Okay," Jounouchi said. "Remember, you're unarmed, and I'm only trying to help you. And on that note, this is going to hurt a bit." Jounouchi moved around and began cleaning up the nasty scrapes on Ryou's yami's feet, even having to pick pebbles out from under his skin at times. The boy barely flinched as he did this, apparently so used to the pain that he didn't notice. "Why don't you tell me why I found you in a bloody heap two streets away from my house after being hit by a car?"
"My hikari has gone off the deep end," Ryou's yami said dully. "He kissed me. He took all my damn magic. He said he wanted me to suffer like he'd suffered. And now I'm suffering, and he's...crazy. Cutting his skin open. Tormenting me just to watch me panic. I know you hate me, but I swear on whatever you put in front of me to swear on that I've never done such a thing myself. I only ever did what he wanted, deep down. I only ever did what he told me. I've protected him, I've died for him, and you're not going to trust me, are you?" Ryou's yami was now bordering on hysterical, with some homicidal mania lurking in the eaves.
"Jesus! Calm down, I trust you on this! Ack! Stop that flailing! Down, boy!" Jounouchi grabbed Ryou's yami's arms hard and hauled the other boy upright. "Sit here. Don't panic. Don't fuck with me. Don't move," he added as Ryou's yami began squirming defiantly. "I. Trust. You. On. This," he enunciated slowly. "I know my accent is different than Ryou's, but I know you can understand me. [1] Now please calm down before I knock you out."
Ryou's yami stared at him for a long time. He does that a lot, Jounouchi mused. I wonder if it's because he's only used to interacting with someone who he can read as well as he knows himself?
"All right," Ryou's yami said quietly. "You'll help me."
"Yes, I will," Jounouchi agreed. "Now were you hit by a car?"
"One of those insane metal things on the road chased me," Ryou's yami said with dignity.
"So that's a yes," Jounouchi replied as he began poking at the wound with antiseptic. "It doesn't look that bad. I think most of the blood came from your scalp and your feet. You're lucky."
"Hn." Ryou's yami looked up at him with a strange smile that was just a few hairs off being normal. "I'm lucky in having the other half of my soul having taken on all my nastier aspects and using them against me?"
"I didn't mean like that," Jounouchi replied, starting work on the boy's worst injury. "So now what is he like? Is he exactly like you were?"
"I haven't changed," Ryou's yami protested. "I'm still – "
"Let me explain something to you," Jounouchi began. "We all see you as this tormentor, this deranged crazy man who's holding a five thousand year grudge, this nutball who's taking out his frustrations on our friend. Ryou. We think you're deranged, we think you're evil. Enlighten me."
"You..." Ryou's yami was staring at him in pure, unforseen shock. "You're going to listen to me."
Jounouchi felt some kind of odd shock in return. "Yes."
"Yami murdered my family. My village. Everything I had, he destroyed it for the Items," Ryou's yami said simply. "If anyone has a right to have them, it's me. To get their souls back. And to get revenge. Who gives a fuck about the world? I don't want the world. I want what's mine. And that's not what Ryou is," he added with sudden energy. "He doesn't do anything for anyone. Everything's about pleasure, it seems. There's nothing in him that does anything for anyone." Ryou's yami pulled his knees up to his chest defensively. "I didn't give him that."
Jounouchi firmly rearranged the silver-haired boy's body. "Slump over and kick yourself when I'm done," he ordered sternly. "I need a name for you. I can't just keep thinking of you as Ryou's yami."
"Now that I have a personality, you mean?" Ryou's yami asked mockingly.
"Something like that," Jou acquiesced easily.
Ryou's yami blinked. "Bakura. Call me Bakura."
"But that's Ryou's name," Jounouchi protested.
"So you accept that we can live in one body, share a mind, share a soul, share likenesses, but you don't get that we have the same name?" Bakura asked, sounding exasperated.
"Oh. Never mind. Well then, Bakura, what do you propose to do with Ryou? You can't live with him, if you were that desperate to get away," Jounouchi observed.
Bakura's fists clenched. "I want my Ryou back. He's mine. You people nowadays don't get the whole ownership thing. I want to know how to get my Ryou back." His voice dropped and he muttered something he probably didn't intend for Jounouchi to hear, though he did anyway, "Although if he keeps that marvelous kissing ability, I won't complain."
Jounouchi snickered and raised one eyebrow at the white-haired yami, whose face promptly matched his eyes, which had begun to flame red in anger. "I heard nothing."
"Damn straight you did," Bakura growled, causing Jounouchi to laugh even harder as he applied antiseptic to his patient's cuts.
"Oh, by the way," Jounouchi said innocently, feeling in his jacket pocket. "Are these yours?" he inquired, holding up the pink plastic scissors.
Bakura snatched the scissors and stuffed them in one of his own pockets. "You didn't see anything, either. Mortal."
Jounouchi held up his hands in defeat. "I am blind and deaf." He promptly cracked up at the incensed look on Bakura's face.
Much later, after Jounouchi had finished entertaining himself by ribbing the downtrodden Bakura, he was putting the last strips of tape on the sulky Egyptian.
"You're done, Bakura," Jounouchi announced, looking Bakura over with professional interest as the silver-haired boy rose to his feet, stretched, and cracked his knuckles sulkily. "Fight the urge to beat the crap out of me," Jounouchi advised with a chuckle as the phone rang. "Who could be calling at this late an hour?" he wondered to himself as he felt around on the coffee table for the phone. Picking it up, he said casually, "Yo."
"Why, hello there, Jounouchi..."
"Ryou!"
"Of course, Jounouchi. Is my yami all better now? You're so good with that sort of thing," Ryou purred softly. His quiet voice was filled with restrained venom. "I tried to give you an extra challenge, but the driver of the car I let the Kuribohs loose in was fairly focused and mostly missed him. But that's okay. I don't do physical pain as a rule. That's for my yami. Is he there? I'd love to speak to him, Jounouchi. I miss him so."
Jounouchi turned to Bakura, who was now sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest. He stretched one hand out for the phone wordlessly. "Give."
Jounouchi handed it over.
Bakura's face went very pale very quickly. "You're mad," he whispered after a long moment. "You're completely mad." Pause. "No." Pause. "No." Long, long silence. Bakura's eyes suddenly flew wide. "No, I don't! Not you! No!" He flung the phone at Jounouchi and scrambled from the room, slamming into the walls blindly.
Jounouchi very slowly picked up the phone and raised it to his ear.
"Jounouchi? Are you there now? Or is it still my wonderfully delicious yami?" Ryou asked with a giggle.
"It's me, Ryou," Jounouchi said. "What did you tell him?"
Another soft, breathy laugh. "Exactly what I felt when I kissed him. Every...last...detail. He doesn't feel he deserves me. And the fact that I included details of what I'd love to do to – or with – him when he returns to me just made him wild," Ryou added smugly.
Jounouchi hit the off button and made to throw the phone across the room. Then he retracted his arm thoughtfully, looked around, and hit a speed-dial number. Please please please let him not come back into the room right now.
Click. "'Lo, Kame Game Shop, we're really, really closed right now, and – "
"Hello, Yami?" he whispered into the phone. "Yeah, I know what time it is. Listen, I have a serious problem pertaining to all this yami-hikari stuff. Is Yuugi there too?" Stop. "What do you mean, he's on the other line? With Ryou? Oh, shit!"
Fluffy: I don't think we'll condense any more chapters after this, so all is well. Oh, and for the [1], we don't mean the Americanized accents. Jounouchi has a very...underbelly-of-the-city accent in the J-version, whereas Ryou does not. Bakura, not being a native speaker of Japanese, would logically have some difficulty understanding him.
moonnymph: Hee.
keira: Horror and freaky. Nice.
Alyssa-anime-angel: You inspired the phone call at the end of the chapter. I wasn't sure where to go until then. Thanks a lot and I hope you like this chapter!
Melissa: Ahaha...ha...are you sure you want to make that suggestion?
LightOfDarkness: Mwahaha. Fear my cliffie power.
Duel: Look. See? Imitate.