Fate: Whee! I like this story and I have nooo idea why. No one else seems to like it.
Disclaimer: It's not ours. Get it got it good.
::chapter two::in which mokuba kaiba is very disturbed::
"Ah..."
"Yes?"
"You seem to have kidnapped me," Ryou pointed out, looking reproachfully over a handful of demon cards at Seto Kaiba.
"It's only temporary," Seto snapped, determinedly not returning the glance Ryou was casting at him. "That...that other person in there, he was...?"
"My yami. Could've sworn you cleared that one up," Ryou filled in absently. Then he blinked and scowled at the cards he was holding. "Why have you abducted me?"
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" was the clipped reply.
Ryou bit back the response that first rose to his lips--Oh Ra, you're really the fashion police!--and instead settled for, "I guess you think my yami uses me as a punching bag."
This elicited a curt nod. "Didn't help that he was in the process of it while I was there."
Ryou rolled his eyes behind the screen of cards. "Do you really think such an egocentric person as my yami would want to regularly beat up on someone who looked just like him? He prefers to keep me caged up at home and pretend he's this great and wonderful protector," he explained, years of politeness being the only thing preventing him from adding a good deal of condescension to the words.
"I don't know your...yami. Nor do I know you." And I don't want to know you hovered in the air between them, an unspoken but very obvious conclusion.
Ryou sighed, almost impatiently but not quite. "Then why am I sitting in your limousine not of my own free will?" He peered at the harassed-looking CEO over the cards he was holding. "Don't tell me that the pharaoh at the game shop put you up to this and you're going to deliver me to them in a neat little package, subdued by the arrival of some nice rare cards and sans ferocious yami."
"I'm not his errand boy," Seto retorted.
Ryou decided to abandon his pose of 'sweet little innocent hikari' and wave the handful of cards under Seto's nose. "And I'm sure these just wandered into your limo on their own, Kaiba-sama," he said, sarcasm dripping from every word.
Seto blinked and stared at Ryou in consternation. "You're...very different from when I last saw you," he said carefully.
"You've never seen me," Ryou said simply. "Not at Duelist Kingdom, not in Battle City, and I've certainly never wandered into your pampered circle anytime other than when I play...because then I have a shot at being your equal. No, you've only seen my yami playacting at being me...or not." He shrugged. "I still don't understand what I'm doing here. I know I look like a girl, but I'm not great material for a one-night stand."
Seto turned magenta, spluttered something, and turned away furiously, lips moving as he counted silently to twenty in French. "No one put me up to it," Seto continued. "It was an impulse." He moved his head to look straight at Ryou. "I don't know if I regret it," he added thoughtfully. "Given the provocation, that is."
"And what was that provocation, Kaiba-sama?" Ryou asked curiously.
"You're right," Seto said abruptly. "I don't know you. And you don't know me, if you ask that so innocently. And...suffice it to say that I can't answer you."
Ryou nodded. "Then we're at an impasse." He reached up and touched one of the bruises on his face, noted how Seto's pupils dilated when he did so, and looked away, still with one hand to his face. "I won't say he doesn't mean it, because he certainly does, but if you knew anything about the makeup sex you would have never spirited me away," Ryou informed him. "Although I'm a bit glad you don't know."
Seto choked on his breath and declined to answer. He instead reached into a pocket, pulled out a cell phone, and hit one of the automatic dial numbers.
"Sir?"
"Eh?"
"You have a call on line one," said the secretary from around the door.
"Oh, thank God." The secretary prudently extricated her head from the aperture and closed the door, retreating to her desk and rolling her eyes internally at the mess that had been made of the room she'd seen. He can really turn that place upside down when he's frustrated.
"Ehh...KaibaCorp, Kaiba Mokuba speaking..." The boy slid on the phone's headset without a glance at the caller ID, more occupied with feverishly knotting his long, bushy hair and chewing a pencil to shreds as he glowered at the half-completed diagrams of the latest hologram microchips. What the hell does he think he's trying to do with these?
"Otouto?"
Mokuba spat out a mouthful of splinters and glared at the cylinder of sharpened graphite. "Do you have any idea how much I hate you at the moment?" he demanded wrathfully.
"Kid, please, I don't want to hear it," Seto said wearily. "Not now."
Mokuba blinked, the microchips becoming a lot less annoying all of a sudden. He leaned back in the chair, grabbed another pencil, and began gnawing on it. "Niisama? Are you...? I...I mean...you sound tired. You never..."
"I have a bit of a problem," Seto said. "When will you be home?"
"You're not coming back?" Mokuba asked, the microchips looming large once more. "But...but these – "
"Leave it, whatever it is," Seto said, sounding almost eerily calm. "Just...pack up early."
"What the hell are you on about? You never – "
"I'm doing a lot of things that 'I never', otouto," Seto cut him off. "Including kidnapping random white-haired friends of Yugi's."
"Hvwaaaaaah?!" Mokuba overbalanced, tipping the chair backwards completely, causing him to spit pencil shards all over himself and bash his head on the floor. "Ow..."
"Mokuba? Are you – what happened?"
Mokuba decided not to get up. "I just had a fairly decent-sized shock, is all. You did what?! Hang on, white hair? Oh God, niisama, I've had enough bad run-ins with those two..."
"Can we not go into this yet?" Seto pleaded.
"Meh," Mokuba said thoughtfully, rolling over and staring out the wall-sized window. "I'll go home now. It's not like I'll be much more useful here except to decimate your pencil collection and shred paper. Damn you and your overnight innovations – what have you done to these diagrams?"
He could picture Seto grinning wryly – one of those rare grins that it seemed only he got to see – before he replied with "Overclocked, kid?"
"No shit. Have I mentioned I hate you?" With that he hung up, hoping that it had at least partially lifted his brother's mood.
Mokuba sighed, brushed off all the pencil shards, and began straightening the papers to lock away in the safe hidden in the closet behind a couple of rather dusty spare suits, a pair of blue high heels, and Seto's collection of...er...questionable magazines.
Mokuba then pulled on his coat, snatched up his bookcase with his work papers, laptop, and end-of-term homework, and took off for the elevator.
The wheels of the limousine suddenly crunched on gravel. Seto promptly relaxed at the welcome sound, though the gesture would not have been noticed by anyone who didn't know him well (read: the entire world save for Mokuba).
"We've arrived," he said to the silent boy curled up on the opposite bench seat.
Ryou looked over at him with blank eyes. "Where are we?"
"My house," Seto said shortly as the limo glided to a stop.
Ryou's eyes unfocused briefly before he smiled tensely. "You make this all sound like a playdate."
Seto lowered his eyes and climbed out of the door that his chauffeur opened for him, barely remembering to take his briefcase as well. He stopped, waiting for Ryou to follow, and when the boy didn't, turned back irritably. "Come on, then."
Ryou bit his lip and slithered out the door, wrapping his arms around himself defensively with his eyes darting around nervously. Then he gasped and froze. "Oh..."
"What?" Seto asked, wondering what there was that would provoke such a reaction.
"It's so pretty..." Ryou was staring unabashedly at the mansion. "You live there? You're lucky," he whispered, eyes shining. "Yami would give an arm and a leg to live somewhere half as lovely."
Seto glanced into the garage, searching for Mokuba's motorcycle. Good. He's back...and alive. Kami-sama, but he's going to get himself killed riding around on that thing...
"So I suppose you'd like to see the interior as well?" he found himself asking Ryou dryly.
Ryou looked at the ground hastily. "Yeah, I'm a sucker for pretty things too...it's a trait yami and I share," he said, neatly dodging the question.
"Come inside," Seto told him, leading the way with his hands shoved in his pockets and the briefcase dangling inelegantly off his left wrist. Ryou hesitated, then followed, a line of pink scoring his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose.
The chauffeur was standing impatiently by the gate, which he finally swung open by punching in a code when Seto reached the iron bars.
"I have to get these replaced, or topped with barbed wire, or something," Seto murmured absently to himself as he walked through the gate, Ryou tagging awkwardly at his heels.
"Um...why?" Ryou inquired, then looked studiously at the gravel underfoot and pretended to not have said anything when Seto glanced back at him.
He's not so brave now, Seto noted internally. "Mokuba keeps climbing over the walls and the fence. He's kicked off a lot of the spines that way," he replied.
"They must not have been well made then," Ryou muttered, then resumed his intense study of the gravel.
Seto was feeling a bit vengeful over his loss in their tête-à-tête and wouldn't have minded discomfiting Ryou a bit more out of sheer spite, but since he found himself standing on the steps of his house and having the door opened for him, the opportunity was lost.
"Niisama? Is that you?" The yell rang down the stairwell almost before Seto stepped through the doorway.
"Yes," he called back.
There was a thump and a clattering noise from upstairs, then Mokuba slid down the banister and vaulted neatly off the end, landing in front of him. "What happened? You sounded so worried on the phone and I – "
Seto, noticing the object of Mokuba's sudden scrutiny, merely said, "I was being quite serious when I said I'd kidnapped a friend of Yugi's."
"I – I know, but I..." Mokuba reached up and began absently and clumsily braiding one of the few untangled locks left in his hair. "This is insane," he muttered. "Niisama, please..." Mokuba reached out and touched Seto's shoulder. "Is it...?"
"You saw it too, then." It wasn't a question that Seto posed. He sighed and looked back over at Ryou, who was leaning on the wall by the door, arms once more crossed defensively over his chest. "Will you excuse us for a moment?"
Ryou nodded tightly, eyes focused on the wall slightly to the right of the two Kaiba brothers.
"Our thanks, Bakura-san," Seto said, and allowed himself to be dragged by Mokuba into one of the adjoining rooms.
Ryou sighed and shifted his weight nervously. It had been fine and dandy in the limo, but then he'd had to go and get all sparkly-eyed over the house (house? Ha, mansion was more like it) and allowed himself to be shoved around again like a helpless doll...
He blinked and looked up. The two brothers had left the door open. Ryou sighed and, out of force of habit, got up to close the door. He did so dislike messiness.
Well...if nothing else, this place is wonderful. It's gorgeous and it's clean, he reminded himself as he quietly crossed the room.
He halted when he reached the door, staring unabashedly at its occupants.
Seto Kaiba was sitting with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest, digging his hands through his bangs in what looked like frustration. Mokuba was kneeling next to him, one arm around his brother's shoulders and the other hand on Seto's knee, resting their foreheads together and whispering urgently.
Ryou slowly closed the door, crossed back to the door, and looked at it blankly.
/Yami?/
::Ryou! What the hell is going on? All you say is that you think you'll be returned and that you're fine and you – ::
/Yami...there's something very odd going on here,/ Ryou said internally.
::No shit! This lunatic who hasn't seen you in years shows up out of nowhere and kidnaps you! What's so normal about that, I ask you?::
/It's even weirder than that,/ Ryou said. /Much, much weirder./
::Well, do you want me to just come there?:: Bakura asked practically.
Ryou considered this. /No...not right now. Things are pretty tenuous around here, and I don't think I want them worse./
::All right,:: Bakura said grudgingly. ::Are you moving or going anywhere?::
/No, I'm in the Kaiba mansion,/ Ryou said. /It's...you'll see when you get there. You're tracking me with the Ring?/
::Doing my damnedest, yes. Yadonushi...:: Bakura paused. ::I don't have to be there physically, you know. I can stay in the Ring – ::
Ryou closed his eyes. /Not now. Maybe later, but not now./
::By the time we reach 'later', I'll already be there,:: Bakura pointed out.
/Then your problem will be solved, no?/ Ryou said reasonably.
::Hn,:: Bakura replied. ::You know what? If you don't need me right now, I'll go talk to the pharaoh,:: he said acidly. ::Maybe he can tell me what's going on.::
/Why would he know?/ Ryou wondered.
::Well, you're with what seems to be the source of the problem and you don't know what's going on, so I think we should look elsewhere for answers,:: Bakura said reasonably.
/M'kay. But yami...don't kill them until we've got all our shipments in,/ Ryou pleaded.
::All right,:: Bakura replied, sounding a bit annoyed. ::Picky, aren't you?:: The connection broke on the last word.
Ryou glared at the door, daring himself to fling it open and run screaming into the wilderness.
I could just have yami blast them to pieces or make them forget me, but...I don't. Why? Why do I have to suffer through all this drama? Ryou wailed internally. He considered retreating into his soul room and having a good bout of kicking, screaming, throwing things at the walls, and otherwise expressing what he was feeling at the moment, but decided reluctantly against it and sat mutinously on the floor.
"I want to go home," he whispered, and suddenly realized how very true the statement was. He then flopped back on the ground and reiterated, "Screw the world, I just want to go home..."
Liviania-- If it made sense you wouldn't know I'd written it. ;;
Melissa-- Let's play the YGO drinking game!
Bakuraluva-- I think it's Ryou: 1 and Seto: 1 at this point.
R Amethyst-- Interesting's good.
Dark Millenia-- Believe me, if I knew that, life would be so much easier.
higashikaze-- I liked that bit too. Hee.
Duel: Review. Now. Or else.