Fate: The subtitle will make sense. I promise. Really.
Disclaimer: Helllooooo Kitty!
[5] In Which A Treaty Is Made
or Yami no Bakura vs. 12 oz. of Ginger Ale
Bakura poked the door after Jounouchi finished speaking, firmly stomping on any and all self-loathing. He then climbed to his feet and stormed out of the closet arrogantly, as though nothing had happened. He was promptly rewarded with a blinding headache and overwhelming dizziness.
"Bakura?" Jounouchi asked gently as he threw out one hand and fell back against the closet door, the mental and physical pain coming to a head once more. "Were you sick?"
Bakura blindly pushed past him to where he knew the bathroom had been and threw up again, retching for a long time and then collapsing to the cool tiles miserably.
So weak...so tired...so weak...can't...
He vaguely felt someone picking him up and carting him back to the couch in the front room, then rushing out and back of the room several times. He could hear two people arguing, Jounouchi and someone else. Jounouchi was winning. The blonde finally snapped, "Shut up and stay out." Then footsteps receded, a door slammed, and silence fell once more.
"Sit up," Jounouchi said after a while, sounding very close. "You lost too much blood and Ryou's mind torture did for you. You may not be mortal, but apparently that's Ryou's new specialty, done to a finish. And if you start doing the whole "I am a yami and immortal and godly and I can never appear weak" thing, then I'm going to punch you. I'm going to make you better, if you'll let me. Now sit up."
Bakura pushed himself upright and rubbed at his eyes with a growl. "You tell anyone that this happened – "
"As a matter of fact, I locked the only other person in this house outside for the time being," Jounouchi said coolly. "Now take these," he said, holding out two small pills and a glass of water. "They'll help with whatever pain you have, and I'm positive you have some. And I know you can endure pain, but if you keep throwing up every five minutes, we'll never get anything done. So take the damn pills and sit still and get better," Jounouchi said, sounding very hacked off.
Bakura, who'd had a fair deal of other healers back in Egypt, knew better than to argue. The healers then had tended to crankily hand out varying strengths of medicine for a range of fees and didn't put up with anything. Especially thieves who wouldn't stay still and tried to make off with their poisons. Thus, Bakura had developed a healthy respect for healers. Demurely taking the proffered medicine, he knocked it back with more ease than he felt about digesting an unknown substance. Then again, he'd probably eaten worse.
"Good," Jounouchi said. "If you can keep that down, we can work from there. You need stuff with iron in it. You eat raw meat, don't you?" he called as he went back into the kitchen.
"You have a problem with that?"
"It's good, actually," Jounouchi replied acidly. "You'll recover faster if you do. You can go hunt some down tomorrow."
"Hn." Bakura grudgingly admitted to himself that Jounouchi actually wasn't as much of a blithering prat as he'd thought. He didn't seem like much of a wimp, didn't put up with anyone giving him hell, and had a reputation for beating people up. All in all, an agreeable sort, really. Maybe. "Who else is in this house?"
"Sitting on the doorstep, actually," Jounouchi said. "Brace yourself," he added, and flung the front door open. "I'll be in the kitchen if anyone needs me," he called, and bolted from the room.
And with a definite sense of self-preservation, Bakura thought as he stared at the very unwelcome visitor. "I should have known you'd be part of this. I should have known. You're trying to take my hikari away! You magicked him to be like this, and you're here to tell me if I don't change then I'll never be free! And you think I won't care and I'll fight you, but you're wrong. You're all wrong! I want him back! I want him back and I want him back right now! So take the damn spell off and I'll do anything. Anything! Take it off! Now!" He vaulted the couch and stormed over to a rather shell-shocked pharaoh, who was looking rather disoriented after being dragged down to a house, forced to tiptoe round it after Jounouchi, forcibly expelled, and then brought face-to-face with a very angry tomb robber on the warpath.
"I didn't do it," the prat of a pharaoh finally said.
That's it? No insult? No sneer? No proof? Just...'I didn't do it'? Something's wrong here! Bakura thought. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, where's the rest of it? The high-and-mighty pharaoh-ness? The righteousness? The you-brought-it-on-yourself-so-bugger-you-for-a-lark-ness?" Bakura demanded fiercely.
"I don't want anything to happen to Yuugi, thief," the pharaoh spat. "And after your hikari flirted with me in a massive way – "
He was completely unprepared for being tackled by an outraged tomb robber. The two of them rolled down the stairs and onto the sidewalk, where Bakura pinned Yami to the pavement and snarled into his face, "And you accepted, didn't you, because you always took what you wanted and you wanted to make me suffer. Always have, always will. You've always been your father's bitch and you'll never remember it. You'll never remember what you did to me, but you hate me anyway and you want me to die! And when he offered, you took him. Didn't you? Didn't you?"
Yami stared at the young thief, amazed by the unconscious pain lining his face. "No."
"You're a liar!" The silver-haired boy's voice cracked on the last word.
"If that's what you want, then maybe I will accept," Yami snapped.
"You – !" Bakura stared intensely at Yami. "You're telling the truth?"
"Yes."
"You never touched him? Ever? Ever?"
"On my word, he's all yours," Yami said.
"Good," Bakura said savagely, rising to his feet. He turned and stalked back into the house without a backward glance at the pharaoh.
"Hellfire," Jounouchi said as the thief passed the blond boy. "You've hurt yourself again. You feeling any better?"
Bakura did a quick assessment. "Pain's less."
"Feeling tolerant?"
"No."
"Did you really just tackle Yami and tell him to stay the hell away from your hikari?"
"Yes."
"Wow. Aren't you protective."
"If you value your life, you won't say another word on the topic," Bakura snarled.
Jounouchi smirked and turned away.
"The smirking is almost as bad!" Bakura howled.
"I'm not doing anything."
"That's the problem," Bakura muttered, taking a seat on the now rather bloody couch and checking out his new scrapes. Bastet's litterbox, have I got any skin left unbruised or unbroken?
Jounouchi silently picked up the basin of water made pinkish with blood and the cloth, then vanished from the room and reappeared with fresh water and a new rag. He set the basin down and handed the rag to Bakura. "Your turn this time. Antibiotic stuff and Band-Aids to your left. Anaesthetic on your right."
Bakura sighed and reached for the water as Jounouchi disappeared again. He ignored Jounouchi bringing the pharaoh into the room and sitting him on the couch on the other side of the room and began trying to differentiate between old gashes reopening and new scrapes appearing.
"Bakura," the pharaoh said. Bakura kept cleaning off his right arm. "I want to keep this from happening to anyone else. And I think having the old Ryou back would be nice. I'm not trying to attack you, or Ryou, or anyone."
"You'll leave us alone?" Bakura asked suspiciously.
"Yes, of course. If you stop beating up your hikari on a regular basis," Yami warned.
Bakura glared at him for an answer. "I do not beat him up. I never have. And I never will. How can you fathom that I would?"
"The bruises he gets – " Yami began.
"What? Doesn't your hikari pick up a few scrapes? He doesn't tell me what happens! He doesn't let me help him out! I'm fucking stuck when he gets jumped!" Bakura was dead white. "You fucking, fucking bastard."
"Tear," Yami announced, drawing the aforementioned drop down his cheek. "The pity for you is overwhelming."
Bakura jerked back like he'd been slapped. After a few frozen seconds, he jerkily got to his feet and stormed out the door.
Jounouchi looked over at Yami. "If he runs off, never to be found, and Domino is plagued by a raging nymphomaniac as a result, I'm blaming you in full."
"I don't believe him," Yami said with a sigh. "I'd like to, but I've seen too much evidence against him."
Jounouchi glared at him, then shot to his feet, threw the door open, and stomped out of the house without changing his shoes. Five seconds later he returned, dragging Bakura by the scruff of his neck. "You are going to sit here and talk, and you are going to be civil, or I will get violent." He shoved Bakura down next to the antiseptic on the bloody couch, then shot a murderous look at Yami. "And if I hear one more word from you on this subject, you're getting booted out on your ass and I call in Pegasus for a consultation."
Bakura lifted a tear-streaked and pale face and glowered at Yami for emphasis.
"I never thought I'd see you cry," Yami said wonderingly.
Bakura raised one eyebrow. "Weak people hide things they think make them look weaker."
Yami thought about this. "So that's it, then." Yami looked covetously at the gold adornment on his chest. "And for Thoth's sake don't try to steal my Puzzle while we're doing this. This is going to be complicated enough."
"Fine," Bakura said sullenly. "Same for the Ring. You can't have it."
"May I step in?" Jounouchi said again, reappearing in the doorway with another basin and cloth. He handed it to the pharaoh, said, "Clean your cuts out properly," and then sat down on the floor between the two Egyptians, watching Yami critically. Bakura smirked to himself that he didn't warrant suspicion on proper health care and picked up the tube of antibiotic stuff.
He licked the blood off his fingers and unscrewed the cap with his teeth as Jounouchi said, "So now what?"
"I think we need a plan of action," Yami said.
Bakura spat the cap onto the floor, said, "No shit, Sherlock," and began poking the ointment at the worst of his cuts.
Yami and Jounouchi both stared at him.
Bakura looked up and blinked. "What?"
"Wait, hang on, you need a place to doss, first off," Jounouchi said, pointing at Bakura. "I wouldn't recommend Ryou's house or your soul room thing, whatever that is, because then you're wide open for assault. I also don't recommend Yuugi's house," he added mischievously.
Yami and Bakura both shot him pained looks that said eloquently, Oh, Ra, not that! Anything but that!
"Exactly," Jounouchi said, quite unruffled. "So, with that in mind, I think you have a choice of here or a bus station. I'd prefer here, because if it were a bus station, I'd have to hunt you down and bring all the medical stuff with me." At Bakura's blank look, he rolled his eyes eloquently and said, "You have to change those dressings. A lot."
"I heal fast," Bakura muttered.
"You still have to change the dressings," Jounouchi replied indefatigably. "And do not argue."
Bakura, noting Jounouchi's switch into healer-mode, shut up.
"Good," Jounouchi said, once that subject had been closed. "My father's off somewhere doing the whole booze, whores, and flying fur thing, so you can stay wherever you want in here. So. What are we going to do? Yami, you have no idea what this is?"
Yami shrugged. "No."
"Fine then. Any ideas who would know?" Jounouchi demanded.
"Isis Ishtar and Shadi."
"Isis Ishtar and who?!" Jounouchi asked in confusion.
"The seer and Shadi?!" Bakura asked in horror. Ra on a stick. How am I going to cover up some of the things I've done? They're not going to help me.
"Isis because she knows things," Yami explained, as though it were obvious. It was obvious. "Shadi because he also knows things." Same tone, same reason.
"And neither of them have any lost love for me," Bakura said acidly.
"Yes, but it's not you who's at stake. It's Ryou," Yami said wisely.
Bugger the smug pharaoh bastard. Why does he have to be right? Bakura wondered as he began peeling the paper off of the Band-Aids and applying them liberally. "...Fine."
Jounouchi tore himself away from critically watching Yami doctor himself and marched into the kitchen. "Well, we're not going to get anything done tonight. It's late. No one will want to talk to us now. We can do this tomorrow."
"Yes," Yami said. "I've got to get back to Yuugi."
Bakura felt a stab of envy. If said 'stab' had been made with a six-foot broadsword, which ran him through and then twisted around a couple times, and finally ripped him apart. To disguise this fact, he also rose to his feet and followed Jounouchi.
"Hey," Jounouchi said, rummaging in the big white box that emanated coldness. "Catch this," he said, throwing a small can at Bakura. "'S ginger ale. It's good for you. Have some."
Bakura promptly opened the can and was doused in carbonated spray.
Yami promptly burst out laughing as Bakura blew some soaked strands of hair out of his face. Jounouchi merely retreated into his room and slammed the door with a parting, "Nobody kill anybody in this house."
As Yami stumbled out of the door, still laughing, Bakura very composedly drank some of the soda and walked to a window overlooking the street. As Yami began sauntering away, Bakura pried the window open. He took another drink, then leaned out of the window, aimed, and threw the half-full can at the pharaoh.
My hand-eye coordination is good, he congratulated himself as he closed the window and turned away from the drenched and cursing pharaoh.
So we have a weekend. And I have to work with the bloody pharaoh, a scary healer boy, an equally scary oracular girl, and that freaky Shadi.
Oh hell.
What am I going to do with the Millennium Eye? [2]
Fluffy: I don't remember exactly, but I think we hit a record high on reviews for this chapter. Oh, and the [2] means that this was written before the bit with Bakura vs. Seto with the Eye was aired/written. (Never saw it in the manga, only just now saw the TV version which places it before the Egypt arc, so it has to be in there somewhere. Maybe?)
Chibi: Will do!
Alyssa-Anime-Angel: You've given him ideas.
Chaosknight: Ryou wants your phone number.
Melissa: I love flaunting characters' fetishes. Read on and see more!
Keira: whistles innocently
Mad Psyentist/Korogi Nagisa: But it's fun...?
Pocky: POCKY!! Fwuffy Sesshy-sama-licious Magenta Tail Glomp of Doooooooooooooom
a very angry person: Bwahaha. Ha. Ha?
Falcona SkyWolf: Hi!
Carolyn: I live in fear. Fear! ;;
Ri-chan: He's for hire. Promise.
firedraygon97: We're getting there. ;;
SSCeles: Wow! Really? THANKS!
LightOfDarkness: Read it, loved it. Updates for you!
Fyredra: Heh, more godly sarcasm coming riiiiiiight up!
Duel: Yo. This would be the part where you go forth and imitate. Go!