A Warm Heart in a Cold Desert

Disclaimer: Don't own YuGiOh, though I can assure you that if I did, the show would have yaoi. Lots of yaoi. ^__^ Lots of fluffly BxR, MxM, YxY, and SxJ.

Pairings: Bakura/Ryou, maybe some side Marik/Malik

Warnings/Other: Yaoi (Don't like? Don't read.), death, angst, wierdness. Splashes of humor here and there. Mild bashing of the American Government because I'm not too thrilled with the way the country's being run.

Summary: -AU- Bakura, an Egyptian prison escapee. Ryou, a contradictory teenager sick of the family life. After Ryou is dragged along on his family trip to desert, he finds Bakura in the back of his car, and decides to run away with him. There's only one problem. They're lost in the desert with no idea where civilization is. YAOI BxR

WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SPOUSAL ABUSE AND DEATH. IF YOU HAVE ANY ISSUES WITH THESE KINDS OF TOPICS, PLEASE E-MAIL OR INSTANT MESSAGE ME AND I WILL TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENS IN THIS CHAPTER MINUS THE ABUSE PARTS.

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~(dream.sequence)~

"Stupid, worthless woman! What mistake of Ra even allowed you to exist?!" A young man with silvery hair stood over a woman no older than twenty-seven at the greatest. Blood was dripping from her scalp and tinging her scraggly light tresses.

She curled into a ball with her back facing her abusive husband, temporarily protecting her stomach from any more punches. Tears stung her cut up cheeks as they streamed from her eyes in salty rivers. He kicked her back, "Get up! I'm sick of you!"

The woman remained where she was, biting down on her tongue to keep from screaming out in agony. She coughed up blood, and cringed at the coppery taste infiltrating every inch of her mouth. Her mind went blank with pain as she suddenly found herself spun around and lying in a pool of her own blood on the linolium tiling of the kitchen floor. From the living room, a frightened ten-year-old Bakura stood frozen in his spot.

Bakura watched helplessly as his father picked his mother up by the collar of her shirt and slammed her against the kitchen wall. Her head smacked into the plaster, drawing even more blood from her already bleeding skin. The man punched her over and over again, grinning sadistically each time she would cry out. Bakura couldn't stand to watch any more. Making sure to be completely silent, he ran upstairs to his room and sobbed into his pillow. Eventually, he heard the cries from downstairs turn into pained whimpers. Pretty soon, even the whimpers went silent. Bakura paused in his crying, hardly daring to move. Something heavy hit the floor downstairs.

~(end.dream.sequence)~

Sharp mahogony orbs flew open, and Bakura glanced around sharply, unaware of where he was for a few moments before it all came flooding back to him. His heart was pounding in his chest as he took deep breaths to try and calm himself down. Frame shaking, he cast a wary glance down to the sleeping Ryou in his arms. The peaceful look on his face in itself was enough to bring Bakura's speeding heartbeat down to a normal level. Bakura sighed.

His vision suddenly became blurred as tears began pooling in his eyes. That particular memory, of his mother's death, always came to haunt him at the most inopportune times. Blinking his eyelids rapidly to avoid crying, the sixteen-year-old carefully unwound himself from Ryou's arms and lay him down in the sand, making sure that the blankets covered him up enough to keep him warm. Ryou shifted in his sleep and made a slight sound of discomfort. Bakura frowned at the boy before his smirk returned to its place on his thin lips. He set off into the pre-dawn light, hoping to return before it got too hot. And also, before Ryou woke up.

.

Bakura walked silently along the top of high sand dune. He kept his eyes intense as he searched for a possible path he could lead Ryou through without too much hassle. He had just found a path that seemed suitable enough when he suddenly lost sight of it and found himself on his back.

A scream escaped his lips as he slid down the side of the dune, tumbling over himself as he fell. At one point, he almost inhaled a mouthfull of warm desert sand, but he managed to cough it up. The fall seemed to last an eternity, until he heard a loud crash and his head, along with the right side of his body and tibia[1] began to burn in pain.

He groaned as he blinked his vision into clarity. He felt his scalp for injuries, and was extremely relieved when there was no blood. Quietly, he murmured a thanks to Ra for sparing his head from any wounds as he began checking the rest of his aching body for anything that might hinder his attempt at freedom. Glancing over to his leg, he found the denim around it to be damp and drunk with a dark moistness Bakura could only assume to be blood. He winced as he pulled back his jeans, and saw a bloodied wound at least an inch deep in his leg.

Dark eyes jammed shut as he spat into his wound. Though he wasn't quite sure if it would work in cleaning it any, he wasn't about to return to Ryou with half his leg gone. When he decided his injury was okay enough to allow him the ability to walk, he shakily stood and began trekking back to the rock he had fallen asleep against the previous night.

//

Gentle earthen eyes opened only to instantly close as Ryou found himself waking to a facefull of hot desert sand. He grumbled into the grains of heat, using his arms to push himself up into a sitting position. Spitting some sand out of his mouth, he coughed and gagged until his airway was clean once more. A pale hand lifted and brushed any remaining sand from his strands of snowy hair. Ryou blinked his eyes and clenched his jaw shut to hold back a yawn as he glanced around for Bakura. Sigh. His mind drifted to last night...

He distinctly remembered falling asleep in Bakura's arms, against Bakura's chest, and having the firm, steady beating of the older boy's heart lull him into dreamland. Standing, he tried to find hints as to where Bakura might have gone. For a second, Ryou considered the fact that he might have been too trusting, and simply been abandoned somewhere in the desert. He began to dwell on that thought as he wandered around the area. Perhaps his trusting nature had finally gotten the better of him. As he motioned to sit down, regardless of how fiery the sand was, he noticed Bakura's sack was still present. Blinking, he reached for the thin-fibered bag, and barely had a chance to peek inside when it was snatched from under his nose. Ryou looked up suddenly as his pulse started racing. His innocent eyes locked with an angry pair of deep orbs.

"What in hell are you doing?"

Ryou froze as Bakura yelled at him, so much different from the almost compassionate disposition he had held just the day before. "I... I wasn't meaning to take anything. I just wanted to know where you were..." the youth's voice held pure honesty as he spoke with his head bowed in shame.

Bakura grunted a response as he examined the untouched contents of his shoulderbag. "Don't ever let me catch you going near my property again." The Egyptian glared.

"I promise." Ryou mumbled apologetically. "I'm sorry."

A sigh escaped Bakura's lips. He found it very hard to remain angry at the boy. His gaze softened and he sat down beside Ryou, creating a small pattern in the sand with the tip of his index finger. "I did some exploring of the area around us. Quite rocky, and definetly dangerous..." He pulled lightly at a bloody spot on his jeans. "I slipped up and tripped while exploring. Got a pretty bloody scratch."

"Let me see it." Ryou said instantly, turning his head and peering worriedly at Bakura.

"Fine." Bakura grasped the ends of his pant leg and pulled the fabric up to his knee, keeping his face emotionless as pain seared into his wound when the denim brushed over it.

The paled skin on Bakura's leg was broken by a mangled and gnarled wound. Blood was still oozing from the middle of the cut. Ryou had to fight to keep his lunch from the previous day down as he watched the red liquid pool in the depression. Apparently, Bakura hadn't gotten a mere scratch, as he had phrased it, for it appeared to Ryou that nearly a fourth of the skin on Bakura's leg was missing.

Wordlessly, Ryou took his suitcase, which doubled as a carry-on backpack, off his shoulders, and dug through it until he found a white cotton shirt. He began tearing it in half as Bakura watched, mildly interested in exactly what Ryou was planning to do. "Give me your leg," said the British teenager, as he moved closer to Bakura's injured limb. He started wrapping it around the wound when Bakura cut him off.

"What in hell? Why're you bandaging me up?"

"Because," Ryou said as he took the two ends of fabric and tied a loose knot, "if you don't keep it away from infections in one way or another, that 'scratch' as you called it could turn into something much more dangerous... perhaps even fatal."

A thin silver eyebrow arched in curiosity. "Oh, really?" He shrugged and sat back, letting Ryou finish with the bandaging. "If it turns out that I do die, do me one favor, 'kay, kid?"

Without a reason or even warning, tears sprung into Ryou's eyes. He shook his head slightly so that his hair covered his face while he regained his composure. Once he was sure he was able to speak without giving away that he had almost cried, Ryou shrugged his hair away from his face, and looked at Bakura's blank face. "I'm not going to let you die, Bakura." When he heard a somewhat annoyed sigh escape the other's lips, he continued. "But yes, go on."

"Keep me the hell away from Egypt."

Ryou blinked at Bakura's comment, but nodded just the same. "Will do... But I'm still not going to let you get even close to dying."

"Whatever." Bakura grumbled. Ryou sighed from somewhere behind him.

"Hey, Bakura?"

"What?"

The smile that played its way across Ryou's face was warm and caring as it entrapped Bakura in its beauty. Bakura took a moment to admire the slight, yet subltly powerful build of the smaller boy. Each lock of Ryou's cloudy hair outlined his perfectly sculpted shoulders without even touching them in front. He almost seemed to glow with ethereal elegance and beauty. Bakura was so lost in observing the captivating presence of Ryou that he didn't even hear the question he was asked.

"Bakura!" Ryou exclaimed, snapping the older's attention back to reality. "Are you okay? You kinda zoned out just now..."

The Egyptian nodded. "I'm fine. What was it you were asking me?" He arched his eyebrow curiously as Ryou's expression turned serious.

"Why'd you dissapear to this morning? I remember you were there when I fell asleep, but when I woke up, you were gone."

An image of the trail Bakura had seen earlier reappeared in his mind. "Oh. Right. I found the perfect escape route. Come on." He said, standing. "Let's get a move on. I know last night you were tired, but today we can't afford to stop unless we're going to pass out, or something similar to that effect. Understood?" Ryou nodded. "In that case, gather your belongings and let's head off."

Ryou did as he was told and slipped his suitcase-turned-backpack onto his shoulders and stood. "Lead away." He smiled.

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Ack... This chapter was short compared to the rest. Either way, I really hope you're liking this story! R/R

_**I'm requiring a MINIMUM of THIRTY reviews before I update. Come on now. That's just fifteen more.**_

[1] Tibia- That part of your leg between your knee and ankle. I didn't know what to call it so I asked my mom and she told me what it is.

~Shori Musei~