A/N: Thank you, Llyxius! Yep, readers, Llyxius is my beta, and so this chapter will be about a thousand times better than the previous ones!
whistles/ Here I am, with an update to my most unpopular fic. This story's so fun to write, though, so please leave a review for me… Thankith. LoL, and I loved all the reviewers telling Malik to run away! Those cracked me up!!
Solace
ChApTeR FoUr
Outside the hospital it was humid and cold. Fog rolled off of a nearby lake to sneak up tree trunks and slither across the dark, wet ground. The moon had yet to rise, which made the land that much more ominously silent.
It was in this heavily wooded, ethereal scene that Malik found himself when he at long last found an exit. Blindly, he ran forward, the thought of the doctors making him unwilling to stop, but he was unable to make his legs go any faster. Newton had every possible advantage, Malik knew, except for proof that Malik was not actually hiding inside the sanitarium.
The ground was slick with wet, rotting leaves that had never been raked. Never would be raked. Again and again this threatened to take Malik's footing, but he refused to slow down.
A dirt road led the way from a main road to the hospital, which Malik found after a while.
Patches of asphalt clung to the muddy path, evidence that long ago someone had cared where the awful building was. Malik stumbled to the end of the lane, where it joined with a two-lane, more modern road. Nothing was in sight except wilderness and thick white fog.
He crossed the street and collapsed into a dike, gasping for breath as his heart beat almost painfully against his ribcage. He was too exhausted to keep going but too irritated with his weakened condition to give up. Malik closed his eyes, air filling his lungs more easily now, and waited for the rushing pulse in his head to stop.
Abruptly, he was hauled off the ground by one much more powerful than he.
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The classroom's silence was thick.
Yugi's attention tried to wander from the notes he was reviewing, and nearly succeeded. Again. Yugi felt like slapping himself. How many times was he given a second chance to study before a semester final? Never? And here he was, thinking of other things, like maybe saving up for a trip to Bermuda.
But why wait? He'd give anything to be in Bermuda right now, warm on the beach, listening to the ocean rise and fall. Or if not Bermuda, then anywhere, really, except this classroom where--
Yugi grimaced, realizing his thoughts had slid away from him again. But after the dream last night (one where he was frozen and made to watch things being built, or born, and then slowly decayed) he felt as if he hadn't slept at all.
He stole a glance over at Joey and Ryou, hoping they didn't look worried over the upcoming test. Ryou was scowling at his notes, silently mouthing the words as he read them. Joey was glaring fiercely at his desk, looking confused and frustrated.
On the other side of the room, Seto Kaiba was calmly moving through the highlights of past lectures. /Soaking it all in like a sponge,/ Yugi mused morosely. This was hopeless.
Back to Bermuda, then.
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Malik struggled against the taller man, but it didn't seem to do any good, no matter where he hit.
Gradually, he realized that the words his attacker spoke were Arabic, and…and he knew that voice.
He craned his neck to look over his shoulder and saw:
"Rishid!" Malik was released. He immediately threw his arms around his old friend. "Rishid." Now his voice quavered, but he was past caring.
Large hands gently clasped Malik's shoulders, which was just the servant's way of returning his master's embrace. "Your sister and I have been worried."
Malik pulled back. "Where is she?"
"She is also searching for you." Rishid was leading Malik through a seemingly invisible path through the forest. "I saw your abductors carrying you and chose to follow. My deepest apologies for being unable to stop them."
Despite the guilt-racked tone in Rishid's voice, Malik felt like screaming at him that he should be sorry; that he should have done something. But every time he looked up at the tall man, he found that he couldn't.
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They reached a hotel around two in the morning. Rishid left Malik sitting half-conscious in the lobby and went to check in. The younger of the pair had time for a nap before Rishid returned and led him to room 118. At about three-thirty, Malik came out of the room's bathroom, toweling his hair and wearing only a pair of flannel pajama pants that Rishid had given him.
The steam pouring out of the room was as much proof to the temperature of the water used as Malik's flushed red skin.
Rishid was sitting on the foot of one of the full-sized beds, staring at a TV commercial for cat food.
"Holiday Inn: Portland, huh?" Malik read the plaque above the TV that proudly boasted the hotel's location. Oregon…quite a ways from San Francisco. Malik frowned suddenly. "Where did you get the money?"
Rishid's serious yellow eyes turned to him. "I apologize. I had to use yours. You left your wallet with me in San Francisco after the third liquor store."
His friend's memory for details always had impressed the younger Egyptian. Rishid stood up and reached into his pocket for the wallet, but Malik shrugged and tossed his damp towel under the sink.
"I trust you with my belongings more than I do myself right now, Rishid." He stretched out on his bed with a contented sigh. "Besides, there are no doctors or cockroaches here, so I'll live."
After a moment of silence Malik found himself examining his new pants, and doubting that they came as a standard issue for guests. "Where did you get these?"
"They would not rent the room to me," Rishid's mellow baritone timbre relaxed Malik more than he thought possible, especially after the long months in the asylum. "And as you are only seventeen, they wouldn't rent to you, either. So I had to use your cash to buy this room from a newlywed couple; they were only too happy to take more money than this room was worth, but I could think of no other option. I see that you have kept quite a bit of Bakura's loot."
Malik's eyes were closed, so he was unaware of Rishid's studious gaze upon him. The blond grunted an answer to the mention of Bakura, but otherwise seemed asleep.
Rishid wouldn't yet broach the subject of Malik's health. He could see plainly that his master was ill. Malik's skin tone was still something most people would call a 'healthy golden glow', but having spent his whole life with the young Ishtar, Rishid knew he was much too pale to be healthy. Malik's cheekbones stood out sharply; the kohl under his eyes was long since rubbed away and anything that might have remained was washed off by his long shower. In place of the black markings, there were dark hollows, which gave him a shrunken, haunted look.
It made him appear much more vulnerable, somehow. With no shirt on, Rishid could see very plainly Malik's ribs. His once finely-sculpted chest was now laboring for breath. His skin was nearly gaunt over a slightly skeletal frame. Rishid felt a flash of violent anger for Malik's abductors. The younger Egyptian was weak before, from the loss of his yami, but now… Now what would they do? How was he expected to recover? The captivity may not have plunged him back into hateful delusions; it might even have pulled him away from bordering on alcoholism. But what exactly had it done, to make Rishid tremble so with fear of…he knew not what.
Silently, he looked back at the mindless nonsense displayed on the television screen while his master fell into a short, dark few hours of sleep.
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Malik crawled around on the stained carpet, searching for his shoes and socks. There was a free breakfast waiting for him downstairs, and the thought of something edible that hadn't been forced through a blender by Doctor Newton made him almost mad with hunger.
"I called your sister."
Malik yelped and spun to face Rishid. He hadn't realized that his silent friend was even awake.
Rishid continued as if nothing had happened, "She went back to Japan, hoping that perhaps Pharaoh could help her find you. I, naturally, told her that you are quite all right. She wants us to go back to Domino so that she can see for herself."
"You called her in Japan?"
"She has a cell phone."
"Oh." No Millennium Rod meant that they wouldn't be getting free, first-class seats. Malik sighed. "Do I have anything left to buy plane tickets with?"
"Yes, of course. As I said, Bakura seems to have left you very well endowed. Or rather, you left Bakura after becoming well endowed."
Malik stopped, his left boot half on and half off. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see the silver-haired pair…not now, or ever. He was having enough trouble dealing from afar with his guilt over the pain he had caused Ryou Bakura. He certainly didn't need any more baiting from the spirit of the Ring.
But surely there could be a way to avoid seeing him. Seeing Isis would be worth risking seeing Bakura.
Shaking his head, Malik pulled his boot on the rest of the way and stood up. "Did you know that we get a free breakfast?"
Rishid regarded him silently, not offering an answer because none was expected. Malik scrubbed his hands through his hair to free the tangles and then headed out the door, knowing that he would be followed.
"Rob! Get more coffee!" A woman's voice, one that sounded as if she'd been eating gravel, was the first thing that Malik and Rishid noticed when they entered the hotel's tiny restaurant. Three other families were already seated at the scuffed tables, and at least six other people were filling or re-filling their plates with steaming, sweet smelling foods.
The apron-wearing hotel mistress turned to them, stifling a cough as she did so. "Yeah, welcome to our Holiday Inn." She coughed again. "Sorry. Our desk manager quit this morning, so we're a little undermanned. Now, are you checking out today?"
"Yes." Malik answered.
"All right, hand me your keys and then enjoy your breakfast." Rishid dropped the plastic keycard into her outstretched hand. She tilted her head and chuckled after studying the room number. "Honeymoon suite, eh?" Still laughing, she walked back to the kitchen.
Malik spent twenty minutes at the breakfast bar loading up on pancakes, hash browns, and dozens of peeled fruits. Rishid had saved him a seat, one of the only free spots left, and had nearly finished his meal by the time Malik sat down.