Title: Silver and Cold

Chapter: 4/?

Chapter Title: What the...?

Current Rating: Still PG-13 (For blood! Blood!!)

Author: Kage Kashu

Archive: FF, Dragon's Lair

Chapter Summary: Jounouchi heals a bit, and later has a surprising encounter... with a very big... wolf, who some of you might recognize.

Disclaimer: Don't worry, I don't own them... yet.

Author's notes: Somehow doesn't seem to have much depth to it, this chapter... Oh, well...

Warnings: For this chapter? I dunno... crossdressing? Very minimal warnings on this one.

Timeline: AUish, after Noa Arc. Some years later.

~*~*~*~*~*~

~Move in life's thrall

I fell asleep for you

Move in life's thrall

I only ask you turn away

Cold in life's thrall

I fall asleep for you

Cold in life's thrall

I only ask you turn

As you seep

Into me

Oh my beautiful one now~

~~Silver and Cold

Kaiba Seto leaned forward, tipping his head to avoid the light seeping through the hospital window. 'Jounouchi...'

The blonde lay unconscious on the pristine white hospital bed. Kaiba had refused to budge from the room when they had been cleaning the wounds and patching them up. They believed that they would have to fix his shoulder surgically. All in all, the total injuries were fairly few. But the extent of them...

His shoulder was shattered. According to the x-rays, not an inch long piece of bone had survived the impact of whatever it was that hit him. Four inches above the elbow was where the damage began, and it extended to his clavicle and shoulder blade. His right shoulder may as well have been put into a meat grinder... and that was just via impact.

His left arm was nearly severed just above the elbow, and most of the blood had come from that injury... and the one on Jounouchi's side, right next to it. They weren't sure, but they believed that they would probably have to sever it. Although, it wasn't bleeding as much now, as they said that the wound seemed to be slightly cauterized. As well as the deeper wound in his side.

His entire left side was covered in small burns, and his left leg was cleanly broken. He had a mild concussion, and would possibly recover... at least partially, from his extensive injuries.

His father had passed out upon hearing the extent of his son's injuries, and was currently seated, still unconscious, on Jounouchi's left side, just across from Kaiba. The stress of work was catching up to the man, with the added shock of his son being found almost dead. Not that Kaiba felt any less stressed.

"Jounouchi..." he sighed, and almost jumped when Jouno's eyes opened blearily. He had been told that Jounouchi wouldn't wake for hours.

"Kaiba?" Jounouchi's eyes slipped back closed. "Why do I keep waking up to your face after I get hurt?"

"Your just lucky," he stated sourly. He leaned closer to the injured blonde. "Do you remember what happened?"

His eyes opened back up, clearer now. "I got attacked. By a huge wolf... I think I lost my knives..."

A slight smirk crossed Kaiba's face at that. "You still had one of them... The nurses had a hell of a time prying it out of your hand. They said that you shouldn't have still been able to grip it with the condition of the rest of your arm..."

"I remember losing one..." Jounouchi tipped his head to the side. "How bad is it, doc?"

Kaiba frowned, "I'm no doctor... but... Your left arm just may have to be amputated. And your right may be useless after this. Severe lacerations on your left side, along with second degree burns all up and down your left..."

"Hey!!" yelled one of the nurses. "You shouldn't tell the patient about that! He needs peace to recover!"

Kaiba glowered.

Jounouchi frowned at her. "All along my left side, huh? Anything else?"

"Concussion," Kaiba murmured, ignoring the nurse's glare.

"I don't feel concussed. And believe you me, I know what concussed feels like." His voice was stronger than it should have been. "Just how many drugs did they give me, anyway? I don't feel no pain..."

The nurse stiffened. "You're not hurting... at all?"

He shook his head slightly. "What the hell'd ya all drug me with anyway? Somethin' new? 'Cause I don't feel lightheaded at all." He lifted his head to get a look at himself. "That's hella lotta bandages..."

She shook her head at him. And Kaiba blinked thoughtfully. He hadn't seen them give Jounouchi anything but antibios yet. "We haven't given you any pain killers...!"

"What?" He tipped his head to the side again. "Then it can't be as bad as it sounded, 'cause I feel fine!" To demonstrate his point, he sat up, and all the doctors and nurses in the room beelined to him to push him back down onto the bed.

Kaiba gaped. The condition Jounouchi had been in... That was _not_ possible. "Jounouchi. How fine is fine?" He was rather proud that his shock didn't carry through to his voice.

"Perfectly fine, just a bit groggy in the muscles, ya know," Jouno answered, trying to push the doctors away.

"Back off."

The doctors and nurses froze at the cold command. "But..." one of them murmured.

"Let him be," Kaiba continued, pushing them away easily. His hand felt for the bandages, and he pressed down. "Do you feel that?"

"Yeah," Jouno frowned, "why shouldn't I?"

He pulled aside the bandages on Jouno's shoulder. The skin was perfectly clear. "..."

"What?" Jounouchi turned his head to look. "Eh? There's nothing wrong with me!" he said cheerfully. Then a serious frown crossed his face. "But I remember hitting that. What about my arm? I remember that too!" Without waiting for Kaiba, he attacked the bandage on his left arm. "Okay... now that's weird."

Kaiba nodded. The arm still had deep angry red gouges... but they looked half-healed. He stepped around the bed to get a better look. And with the worst timing imaginable...

Jounouchi Elder woke up. The man shrieked at the proffered arm, and was backed into the wall before anyone had recovered from the sudden sound. "K...k...kaa... Katsuya!" the man stuttered.

Jouno stared up at his now terrifically pale father. "Eh?" he asked before looking back down at his arm. He poked at the edge of the wound with a surprisingly cold detachment. "It's kinda cool, seein' all the muscles and everything like that, without the skin in the way. But it hurts now. And what's worse... it itches like a mother fucker!!!" He glanced up at one of the nurses, in a pathetic fashion. "Can I have some aspirin? Morphine? A mallet? A grenade?"

The woman pulled out a needle. "Alright then..."

"Eep!!" Jouno jumped up and away from the nurse. "Nonononononononono... no needles," he said, pinning himself against the wall, right next to his father, "needles are bad."

"Well, no pain reliever if you can't handle a needle," she said succinctly.

"No needles?" Jouno asked, sounding relieved.

"Sit down," the woman ordered.

Cautiously, he sat back on the bed. Kaiba noted, with amusement, the sidelong, paranoid glances aimed at the woman.

"I'll need to reclean the wound, and rebandage it. Then we can check to see if you still have any other wounds." She began her careful inspection immediately, removing the now useless bandages (including the one around his neck), and retying the one Jounouchi had ripped off after cleaning the half-healed gouges beneath it.

After that, Kaiba let it be known that the bill should be sent to him, and Jounouchi was released, to everyone's mild surprise.

Outside, the blonde glanced at his father. "Uhm..."

The man drooped slightly, then stiffened. "What the hell have you been up to lately, that you get so horribly injured so early in the morning, and then are suddenly almost completely healed?"

Jouno scratched the back of his neck. "I dunno. I was walkin' jes' outsida town and I got attacked. By one big ass wolf... Next thing I know, I'm in the hospital with Kaiba lookin' at me like his kitty died." He paused, turning to stare at Kaiba. "Should you be outside?"

"I'm fine," Kaiba murmured. "I've already learned to wear a lot of sunblock." He casually pushed his sunglasses higher up his nose.

Jouno glanced around. "Aw, shit."

His father lifted an eyebrow. "What?"

"I'm missing school!!"

~*~

Mai Valentine leaned forward to put the finishing flair to her creation. "Stop squirming, or I won't be able to get it right!" The boy stilled, and she deftly applied the mascara. "You really are a work of art, even if I do say so myself." She carefully puffed the pale pink blouse, moving on to the semi-short black skirt. "It might not work on him, you know."

"Why not?"

"He's been living around you for several years. And I know you aren't just doing this to make him feel foolish, either. You're doing it for blackmail. Jounouchi is almost never embarrassed about the things he does, so I'll just say tough luck." Mai tossed her hair back. "If you hurt him, though, Ishtaar, you'll be in worse trouble than you can even imagine." She laughed to herself. "I just thought of another reason it may not work... He's got the hots for Kaiba, as well as little me can tell."

"He likes Kaiba?" Malik's (the Hikari) eyes widened. "Oh, well. Maybe I'll just do it to Honda..." He sounded so disappointed, that Mai almost would have thought that the boy had a crush...

~*~

Currently, Honda was jumping up and down, holding Jounouchi in a bear hug. "We were so worried!!"

"Ack!" Jouno shook his head. "Let go! Yer squeezin' my arm!"

Kaiba glared from the shade of the sakura trees (1) on the other end of the yard.

Jounouchi noticed this when Honda finally put him down. "Looky, I'm still very much in the land of the living... Kaiba!" he called, to get everyone's attentions off of him. "C'mon over here, and stop guarding the tree!!"

Kaiba glared for a moment longer before complying. He didn't really want to... but if the pup asked...

Honda grabbed Jounouchi's wrist, pulling the jacket down so that he could see the bandages that he'd been able to feel underneath the school uniform. "What did you do here?" He asked, eyebrows raised.

"I got attacked by a wild animal, in the woods," Jouno answered honestly, if a little distractedly, as Kaiba was now standing right behind Honda. "Kaiba? What're you doing?"

Kaiba shrugged, as Honda jumped to the side, surprised that Kaiba had gotten behind him so easily. "Wondering how much your arm's healed already."

"It can't have healed that much... It still hurts." He felt at the bandage, before undoing it carefully. "I don't think I need the bandage any more, now..."

Kaiba shook his head as Honda leaned in to get a look. "Now that's nasty... And you got it this morning?" He shivered. "There sure is something weird going on here... I mean, weirder than normal."

Kaiba gave a disgusted snort. "Considering our lives, normal should be taken as unusual."

"Speaking of normal being abnormal," Honda said, "You're acting really normal. Which is abnormal for you... What's up with that?"

Both Kaiba and Jounouchi stared at him for a moment, before Kaiba spoke again. "I don't feel like being abnormal right now. Because I'm as abnormal as it comes at the moment."

"No kidding," Jounouchi laughed.

Kaiba snorted again. "At least I'm not the instant healer."

"It couldn't have been instant," Jouno kicked the table, sitting next to some of his other friends. "Not with how much blood was on yer jacket..."

"What? Do you think you owe me for dry cleaning or something?"

Jounouchi shook his head. "No... It's just... I don't get it... What happened? I must have missed a lot of it if you found me trying to walk back home!"

Kaiba nodded. "It's quite likely that the injuries had been worse."

"Ack, don't make me think about it..." Jouno propped his feet up on a nearby table, completely unaware of all of the curious eyes. He peeked at Kaiba. "Ya know... If you told someone about that you would have a lot less to worry about."

Kaiba shook his head. "Right. No thank you."

"Yeah," Jouno glanced over those who he sat next to. Yuugi, Ryou, Malik in a dress... What? Why was Malik wearing a dress? He jumped up and leaned forward. "Yo, man. What's up with the dress?"

Everyone leaned back when he jumped, surprised at the speed with which he had done it. Malik stared, wide eyed, into the face of the other blonde. "What?" He lowered his voice out of the range for anybody not as close as Jounouchi to catch, "How'd you know?"

"Wha? C'mon, man, it's obvious!" Unconsciously, he lowered his voice to match the other's.

"Nobody else knew."

Jounouchi blinked. "Really?" He hadn't realized that his friends were so dense. Then he said so.

"Just pretend that I used to be a tomboy, okay? Because they already know you know me."

"Uhm... Okay." He hopped back into his previous position. "Wake me up when it's time to get back to class," he ordered, closing his eyes to nap. The last thing he heard was what sounded like Malik hitting on Honda. And Honda flirting right back. His friend's were dense...)

~*~

Jouno yawned. Upon opening his eyes, he discovered it was dark. Why was he outside? He sat up, stretching. "When did I get out here?" he wondered aloud.

A soft voice answered. "You've been out here since this morning's school break."

His eyes widened. "Aaah!! Damnit!"

"It's too late to be so upset about it, wolf."

"Eh?" Jounouchi glanced around. "Where are you?"

"Right behind you."

"Iiiiiiiiyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!" Jouno fell as he turned to face the presence at his back. "What are you?" he asked, once he calmed down for a moment. He was now laying on his back, in the grass next to the table.

"I'm what you'll soon be, young wolf," the creature that stood above him was pitch black, and as it said, it had the look of a wolf. "It's surprising that you're alive, little wolf. That one you met last night was maddened by the moon. It happens sometimes."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

"On next full moon, you'll be amongst my brothers..." it sighed, sounding sad, somehow. "But we're split up, it's depressing. Gangs of us, tearing up the streets. Weaklings." The huge wolf snorted. "I think... you remind me of someone. You'll change things." It sighed again. "If you don't die first. Live by the sword, you know. Of course, I prefer using something bigger." It chuckled. "If you're ever in the South Shop sect... come by my shop. Sagara's Antiques. Kid like you might enjoy it. Ask for Sano."

The wolf leapt from the table, and Jounouchi could see the red strip of cloth above its eyes. Less than a moment later, it was running for the trees in utter silence.

"That was interesting," said a familiar voice, not too far away.

"Kaiba! Why the hell didn't anyone wake me up!!"

~*~*~*~*~*~

(1) As mention before, sakura and cherry trees are the same thing.

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I'm very disappointed in ff.n, 'cause it won't show me my reviews...... I'm so sorry to those of you who have, and when I can see that you have, I'll thank you all!