Caution- Sharp Turns Ahead

**

"Yugi?" Ryou said softly, lightly knocking on his bedroom door before letting himself in. "I called Joey; he'll be over first thing in the morning to see you. I told him you probably just needed some rest tonight, I hope you don't mind."

Yugi shook his head, clutching Ryou's quilt around himself tightly, the large heavy blanket practically swallowing him up in its comfy nest. "Thanks for letting me stay here, Ryou. I just… I can't believe this is happening. Everything was so perfect until yesterday, I don't understand." He blinked up at Ryou with eyes shiny with tears. "D-did I do something wrong, that made Seto mad at me? I can't think of anything…"

Ryou sat down on the bed beside Yugi, hugging the blanket-cocoon Yugi had wrapped around himself. "I'm sure you didn't do anything wrong. Kaiba's just… you know he's just under a lot of stress all day, he's probably just not thinking clearly. It'll be okay in the morning, I'm sure."

Yugi sniffled and shook his head. "I don't think so. Seto's so stubborn… whatever it is he's mad about, he'll be mad about it for a good long time. I just wish I knew what it was."

"You need to get some rest now, Yugi," Ryou said gently. "You can't stay up all night just being depressed."

Yugi pouted at him. "Who says I can't?"

Ryou smiled softly. "I say so. And since you're already wrapped up in most of my bedcovers, how about you take the bed tonight?"

Yugi grabbed Ryou's arm desperately the moment Ryou moved to get up. "Don't go! I don't want to be by myself tonight. Losing Seto… hurts, and I don't want to be alone."

"Okay," Ryou agreed reluctantly. He went to the dresser to dig out some pajamas for the both of them. "You can borrow these… they'll probably be huge on you, but they're more comfortable than sleeping in all that leather you favor."

Yugi sluggishly pulled himself out of the comfy nest he'd made for himself, taking the offered pajamas and dragging himself to the bathroom to change. Ryou frowned as he changed into his sleepwear as well and climbed into bed. Yugi was taking this really hard. It was painful seeing Yugi so broken up over this. It made Ryou very uncharacteristically angry with Seto Kaiba for doing this to Yugi.

He couldn't help but smile though, when Yugi padded back into the room, the pajama's hanging off his small frame almost comically. Yugi climbed into the bed, cuddling up to Ryou in an effort to get as much close-contact comfort as he possibly could. Crying so hard had really tired Yugi out, and he was asleep within moments, a sort of uneasy, fitful sleep, which Ryou held him close throughout.

**

Bakura was in a foul mood when Yami finally came home that night. It didn't help in the least that Yami seemed so calm about it, either.     

"What were you thinking?" Bakura demanded. "Duke Devlin told you how he felt about you, and yet you'll just go out to dinner with him like I don't even matter?"

"Of course you matter," Yami replied patiently, calmly brushing past Bakura and heading for the kitchen, digging through the fridge for a soda. "But you weren't here. I didn't see the harm in it."

"You don't see the harm in going on a date with him even when you have me?"

"It wasn't a date, it was dinner. Duke is nice, and considering he seems to have… strong feelings for me, I figured it would at least be polite to get to know him. At least be friends." Yami's expression was calm, but Bakura got the feeling Yami was just daring him to say something stupid and dig himself into a deeper hole.  

Bakura grit his teeth. "You're enjoying this, aren't you? You had such fun making me jealous before we got together, you've decided to do it again!"

"Now why would I do that?"

"I dunno, because you're secretly a manipulative little freak!" Bakura snapped at him. "You've got some great grand scheme in your head that somehow involves me suffering, don't you?" Now, Bakura knew he was frustrated, and he knew he said some rather stupid things when he was frustrated, but one look at Yami's face and he decided he should have picked some other stupid thing to say. Anything else.

"I think," Yami said, deliberately slowly, "that perhaps we need more time apart from each other than I realized." He turned his back on Bakura, heading for his room.

"Yami!" Bakura called after him. "Yami, wait!"

"Goodnight, Bakura."

**

"That spoiled rotten creep!" Joey growled for the millionth time of the morning. "I can't believe he did that! How dare he?"

"He must have his reasons," Yugi answered, having repeated those words so many times they felt burned on his tongue.

"But he wouldn't TELL you his reasons!" Joey retorted. "Didn't even have the guts to tell you in person!"

"Seto's busy," Yugi repeated, staring at the floor. His voice broke on a sob. "Always, always busy. Too busy for me…"

"Awww, don't mourn for that rich little snot," Joey said, trying to be comforting. "You're better off without him. And if anyone knows that relationships ain't easy, it's me." He shot a friendly glare at where his boyfriend Marik was leaning against the wall, looking so bored he could cry. Or throttle someone. "You could help."

"What?" Marik's eyes narrowed at Joey. "I'm only here because you are. And speaking of which, we've been here for two hours. Make Yugi quit sniveling so we can go."

Joey rolled his eyes, ignoring his antisocial boyfriend. "Ignore him, Yuug. He's really much nicer than he sounds."

Yugi sniffled. "S-Seto was too…"

Marik groaned as Yugi resumed crying. "Here we go again."

Joey frowned, trying to think of anything that would cheer his little friend up. Anything to distract him. "Hey, tell you what, Yugi. Just to prove I'll be here and support you in anything, since you won't be getting laid for a while, neither will I."

Yugi blinked at him. "Y-you'd really give that up, to be here with me?"

"Hey!" Marik protested. "I didn't agree to this! What am I supposed to do?"

Joey ignored him. "Sure, Yuug! If I make tall-dark-an'-creepy over there keep his mitts off for a while, I'll have more time to spend with you. It'll be like old times."

Yugi smiled at him, weakly, but just what Joey was hoping to see. "Thanks, Joey. You're the best."

Marik snarled something fierce in Egyptian that was probably better off not translated, and stomped into Ryou's living room, where Bakura was currently trying not to sulk.  

"The gods," Marik announced, "have gone crazy."

"They were already crazy," Bakura muttered back. "They sent us five thousand years in the future to play bodyguard to a bunch of over-emotional mortals."

Marik glanced at him, temporarily pleased to find someone a little more miserable than he was. "Let me guess; Yami kicked you out."

"He didn't kick me out!" Bakura snapped.

"Nahh, he did something worse than that," Marik mused. "He's denying you sex."

Bakura frowned at Marik, then smirked. "You too, huh? You and your little puppy have a domestic dispute?"

"Worse!" Marik exploded. "Joey's decided he's going to support Yugi by refusing to put out. However 'that' twisted logic works. So until Yugi gets fucked, I think I'm screwed."

"Or rather, not screwed," Bakura retorted with a smile. "I think Yami's terms come to somewhat of the same thing. Kaiba, of course, is being impossible. My plan was to push Yugi and Ryou together until they ended up in a sweaty tangle of limbs and bed sheets, but… if it's working, it's doing so slowly."

"Well…" Marik said slowly. "Since we do seem to be working for a common goal… perhaps we should join forces."

"We tried that before," Bakura reminded him. "And you know how well that worked out."

"This time will be different," Marik assured him. "We will succeed, because after all, we are doing this for dear Yugi's sake, are we not?"

"Oh, indeed." Bakura grinned. "For Yugi's sake."

**

Mokuba checked the clock in the hallway as he headed purposefully to Kaiba's room. He'd known his older brother was upset when he'd come home the night before, but it wasn't like him to sleep in, especially when there was work to be done. He knocked on Seto's door, and receiving no answer, peeked inside. Seto was still in bed, the bed covers pulled over his head.

Frowning at the uncharacteristic event of finding Seto abed a full half-hour after his usual time for getting up, Mokuba straightened up to look as grown-up as his small stature could possibly allow… then took a running leap at his sleeping brother, tackling him.

"Seto!" Mokuba announced, pulling the bedsheets off Kaiba's head. "It's time to get up!"

Kaiba glared at his little brother with blurry eyes. "Go away, Mokuba," he sleepily commanded.

Mokuba shook his head, climbing off the bed. "You have to get up!" he insisted. "You scheduled a meeting today, remember? You kept telling me it was a really important meeting, the clients were only going to be in town for a few days!"

Seto groaned and pulled the blankets back over his head, burrowing into the bed. "I'm not going to work today," came his mumbled reply.

Mokuba stared at the lump in the bed that was his brother. "But Seto-!"

"I am NOT going to work today," Seto repeated sharply. "GO. AWAY."

"Oh…" Mokuba slowly backed out of the room. "Okay…" He headed back downstairs, sitting down at the table, not entirely sure what to do. Then he took up a pen and a piece of paper, writing a note;

"Please excuse Mokuba from turning in his history paper on Tuesday, because the Apocalypse is coming."

He considered going back upstairs and getting Seto to sign it, but figured it might just be easier to forge his brother's signature. After all, he wasn't really sure that thing upstairs was really Seto Kaiba, at all.