Fate: La. A storm is in the offing. Literally.
Disclaimer: Boogaboogaboogabooga!
[4] In Which Everyone Is Disturbed
"Hello to you, too, and yes, he's talking to Ryou," Yami said, feeling slightly miffed. "They are friends."
"Right now I ain't so sure about that," Jounouchi replied, sounding as though he were trying to keep his voice down. "I kind of have a serious situation on my hands here, and I think you'd better get Ryou off the line."
"Why?" Yami felt a deep sense of foreboding replace his mild irritation and amusement. "Is his yami giving him trouble?"
"No," Jounouchi said. "Nothing like that. Kind of the other way around, if you know what I mean."
"I don't, Jounouchi. What's going on here?"
"I told you, I got a serious problem with all that Millennium magicky stuff, and I wouldn't talk to Ryou at all if you can help it. It's...um...disturbing," Jounouchi said, fumbling for the proper words. "Scary? No, that's his freaky yami. Unnerving? Yeah. Unnerving."
Yami blinked, sighed, and looked around for his vertically challenged hikari as Jounouchi rambled on in the background. He makes me feel tall. Ra help me if he should ever grow. "Yuugi?"
"One second, I'll be right back," Yuugi said – probably to Ryou – from another room with a different phone line. "Yami?" he called. In a few seconds he'd poked his head around the doorframe and was giving Yami a mild version of his Puppy Dog Eyes Look Number Three, a.k.a. the Inquisitive Look of Doom.
"I think Jounouchi needs to speak to you urgently," Yami said, more to Jounouchi than to his aibou, who by then was fully into the room and intensifying the Look Number Three.
"Oh, right, yeah I do," Jounouchi said, sounding startled. Yami sighed and handed the phone over.
"Hey, Jounouchi, what's up? Can you tell me quick, I left Ryou hanging," Yuugi said. Yami could hear Jounouchi speaking, but he couldn't tell what he said. "What? Jounouchi, why do you want me to do that?" Yuugi covered the phone with one small hand and looked over at Yami who by that time was once more lying on his back next to the phone table where Yuugi was now sitting, just as he had been when the phone had rung. "Yami? Is...is Jounouchi drunk or something?"
"It's a possibility," Yami acknowledged this new idea. "Why do you ask, Yuugi?"
"He wants me to hang up on Ryou," Yuugi said wonderingly. "He sounds a little overexcited. And scared. And he won't stop whispering."
"Yuugi, aibou, give me the phone please," Yami said, holding up one hand for the phone. "Don't go talk to Ryou. I have a bad feeling about this."
"Sure thing," Yuugi said, handing the phone over.
"Jounouchi, why are you whispering?" Yami asked.
"I don't want him to hear me," Jounouchi said, like this was the most obvious thing in the world. "He doesn't like you that much, you know."
"Who, Yuugi?" Yami asked, shocked.
"No, of course not!" Now it was Jounouchi's turn to sound amazed.
"Well, then, who?"
"Bakura. Ryou's yami. He's somewhere in my house," Jounouchi said casually.
"Jounouchi, I'll be right there!" Yami promised, sitting up.
"Hey, wait a second!" Jounouchi protested. "I mean, I want you to get your ass over here real soon, but storming in here trying to kill Bakura isn't going to help me any. No, the reason I'm whispering is that it's him who needs the help and it's Ryou who's the psycho, and if Bakura finds out I'm calling you, hit by a car or not hit by a car, I'm toast!"
"Ryou a psycho? Hit by a car? The thief needing my help? Jounouchi, are you drunk?" Yami demanded.
"No, but I've got enough medicine to stock a small dispensary scattered all over the front room, blood all over the place, a tomb robber hiding somewhere in my house, and a suddenly very scary friend who seems to be making a habit of calling up people he knows and saying scary and perverted things," Jounouchi replied with dignity. "Can I talk to Yuugi again?"
"All right, Jounouchi, but I'm still coming over there," Yami said. He gave the phone to Yuugi, then hauled himself to his feet and prowled into the room he shared in part with Yuugi. It was, as usual, an adorable mess. This meant that Yami's small collection of material items was very often difficult to find, as Yuugi rearranged his room about once a week.
Yami sighed and began hunting through the room on his hands and knees. Where's he hidden my things this time? Sometimes I'm tempted to dump half this stuff into the Shadow Realm. Neither of us uses it. Every so often these thoughts were punctuated with a curse or two as he hit various parts of his anatomy on unyielding objects.
Finally he pulled a plastic bin out from under the bed. "Ah. There we go," he said, brushing dust off of his clothing and opening the bin. It was crammed full of things he'd found when Yuugi had dragged him around the mall soon after they had both discovered he could have his own physical form. Oooh. Buckles. There. Yami snatched out a dark red pleather coat, long pants, and three red belts, all laden with enough buckles to equip a small horde of schoolchildren's shoes. He then slammed the cover back onto the bin and kicked it across the room, where it promptly burst open and spilled leather and vinyl across the floor.
Yami decided to ignore this and shrugged into his new adornments, discarding the ratty sweatsuit he secretly wore when only he and Yuugi were home. With this done, he marched regally out of the room and closed the door on the now-increased mess. I didn't do it.
As he passed the room with the phone off of the hook, his curiosity promptly invited all of its friends over for a party, which they kicked off with pyrotechnics, margaritas, and bongo drums.
Yami decided to talk to Ryou.
He went over a bit noisily, considering the amount of metal and squeaky pleather on his body, and lifted the phone from the table. "Hello, Ryou, are you still there?"
There was a soft, breathy giggle from the other end. "Well hel-lo, pharaoh Yami. Not the 'yami' I was hoping for, but you'll do. You're probably wearing more leather than mine is now, and leather is pretty damn sexy. And yes, that was what you thought I just said," Ryou added with another giggle. "So how've you been, o pharaoh? Planning to go play rescuer to my yami? Or maybe it's Jounouchi you'd like to rescue. Either way, that's such a turn-on. Wish I could be there myself, but I have things to do." Ryou sighed tragically. "Maybe I'll stop by after my homework's done. How late are you free? You know, my yami thinks I'm an excellent kisser. You being the pharaoh, I'm sure you had the best of the best back in Egypt, so maybe you can evaluate me?"
Yami pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it, horrified, as Ryou continued talking in that low, breathy, almost slutty voice. He slammed the phone down onto its hook and bolted back into the room with Yuugi. There goes my vague idea of the thief brainwashing his hikari, he'd never go to that extent. Or if he did, he wouldn't have left. Something is horribly wrong over there with Ryou. And Yuugi's staying out of this. I don't want it happening to him! Well...
"Hey, Yami," Yuugi said, holding out the phone. "Jounouchi wants to talk to you again."
"Jounouchi," Yami said softly as he took the phone and moved away from Yuugi. "I just talked to Ryou."
"Scary, huh?"
"He was flirting with me. Definitely asking me to kiss him, implying that I should. Er," Yami said, glancing at his still-present hikari.
"Do not tell Bakura," Jounouchi replied instantly. "Oooh, you didn't hear me say that. But don't tell him."
"Hn." Something I missed there? Yami glanced at his aibou once more, then inexplicably began to flush. I will not start comparing our relationships, I will not start comparing our relationships...
"Yeah. But that's Ryou now."
"Look, I'm coming over there, and I'm not bringing Yuugi. I don't want anything to happen to him," Yami said.
"I think you have to kiss him for this to happen," Jounouchi said.
"That's awkward." Yami decided not to expand on whether he was cursing the setup in general, the strange trigger, or the fact that this might prevent certain things he'd had in mind for a while.
"Oooh, am I detecting a bit of regret here?" Jounouchi asked, sounding delighted.
"I'll be right there," Yami said through clenched teeth, and hung up on Jounouchi.
"Yami?" Yuugi promptly asked.
"Yuugi, I need to go over there by myself. Something is affecting Ryou, and I don't want it to happen to you," Yami said. Flirting, that's good. Ryou-class scariness, maybe not so good. Hathor in a hamburger, I need help. "I'll keep in touch, aibou," he said, gently ruffling Yuugi's hair. "I'll try and be back before too late."
"Sure thing," Yuugi said. "Don't stay up too late, aibou."
Yami smirked – he never just smiled – at his hikari and left for Jounouchi's house.
Then stopped outside in the street. No wonder the thief got floored. I almost want to pity him. Well, so long as he doesn't try and kill me or Ryou, we might be able to work something out. Maybe.
He walked silently through the streets of Domino City, thoughts stewing madly. Suddenly a familiar smell froze him where he stood.
Blood. That's not a good thing.
He stared at the half-dried pool of it across the street from him, which had bloody footprints leading to it from the left. Yami stood gawking in a most un-regal manner for a good solid minute.
"Hey, Yami!" Jounouchi yelled, startling him out of his brown study. The blond boy was running down his street towards him. Yami blinked and cautiously crossed the street. When he reached the further side, Jounouchi was looking pensively at the blood on the sidewalk.
"I hope I have something with a lot of iron in it at home," he said inexplicably.
"Excuse me?" Yami asked, standing well clear of the blood.
"For Bakura," Jounouchi said. He nodded at the blood. "All his."
"What?" Yami's eyes widened. "What did this?"
"He said he jumped through a closed window, second story, then Ryou sent a Kuriboh at some driver and got him hit by a car," Jounouchi explained, drawing Yami away down the street. "C'mon, I better get back and find him. He really flipped when Ryou called him, and I think I'd better make sure he's not out killing someone or something like that. And I hope Ryou didn't decide to come visit. Bakura and I are on tenterhooks about this whole me-playing-medic thing, and I hope Ryou doesn't call him or anything. But I think he'd be smart enough to not pick up the phone," Jounouchi said thoughtfully.
Yuugi?Yami said silently.
/At your service./
If Ryou calls, hang up. Please. Promise?Yami asked.
/I guess, sure, I promise. But you're going to tell me why, right? What's happened to him?/
Of course I'll tell you. I just kind of have to find out first. I'll talk to you soon,Yami said.
/Okay./
Jounouchi pounded up the stairs to his house ahead of him. Yami began to follow, then froze. "Blessed Ra!"
"Blessed what?" Jounouchi asked, turning around.
"Ryou and the thief aren't in the habit of speaking through their link, but if Ryou should decide to for his own amusement, the thief might never get away from Ryou," Yami said.
"What, he can't block him?" Jounouchi called down softly, hurrying down to join Yami at the foot of the stairs.
"Maybe. I've never tried with Yuugi, and I don't choose to," Yami said firmly.
Jounouchi looked away. "If something like this happens, you might have to."
"I won't let it happen. It will stop here," Yami swore. Regally, of course.
Jounouchi nodded, looking around for panoplies, fanfares, and scribes bearing the Royal Word of the Varicolored Pra – er, Pharaoh. "Then shut up and follow me. Carefully. This is going be a delicate operation."
"I'm good at delicate," Yami said defensively.
Jounouchi stared at him.
"Better than you are."
Again with the staring.
"I'm serious, Jounouchi."
"My ass you are," Jounouchi muttered, heading up the stairs. Yami followed, trying not to reflect on the conversation. He had the feeling he'd been severely put in his place.
Jounouchi threw the door open, hopped in place again as he discarded his shoes, then headed straight for the darkened kitchen. Yami followed silently.
"Bakura? Hey, Bakura, you still here?" Jounouchi asked, flicking on a light.
It was silent in the house.
Jounouchi half-smiled and looked at a closet set way at the back of the house. "Thought so," he said softly. He motioned for Yami to stay where he was, then went over and gently knocked on the firmly closed closet door. "C'mon out, Bakura. I need to start negotiations tonight."
The door opened fractionally.
FluffCat: Hentai phone calls are of the fun-ness. Ne, ne, do you think Ryou should start a phone-sex line?
firedraygon97: Updates! I love vacation. I can write all day. Except for summer term. But I write all day anyway.
Sarina Fannel: Sssh, it's a secret.
moonnymph: sits in a corner and cackles together with her hikari
Keira: And he's just going to get worse.
LightofDarkness: Ryou is yours for the night. With duct tape.
Fyredra: Everything you never wanted to know, all in ?
Alyssa-Anime Angel: All yamis shall fear the DERANGED RYOU OF DOOOOOOOM!
Demented Yami: Heeeeeeeey presto! I updated!!!
Duel: Yo. Got reviews?