Fate: Nerg. Rating pushed up to R for this chapter. Because Yami no Bakura demands it. I am bad bad writer. Bad bad updater too.

Disclaimer: g'way. sleep.

11 In Which Someone Unexpected Appears

"Credit card, duct tape, free beer pass," Ryou muttered as he shoved the aforementioned items into a spare briefcase that Bakura had...er...found. "Yaaaaami?"

"Whaaaat?"

"What'd you do with the handcuffs?"

"...I think they're where we left them."

"If you lost the keys, you better find out a way to get them back."

"The keys or the handcuffs?"

"The handcuffs. Here's the pink fuzzy ones," Ryou announced, adding them to the pile. "Slightly larger handful of cards than I should have," he added, raising one eyebrow.

"...what? Stop looking at me like that."

"I'm not looking at you."

"Oh yes you are."

"Shut up and get the fucking handcuffs."

Ryou and Bakura had come to an unspoken agreement that even though leaving right away might not be the greatest idea, that being ready to leave at any given second would, in contrast, be a brilliant idea.

"You do realize that we have a serious problem, right?" Bakura asked, busily undoing the lock on the stray handcuffs.

"We're kind of dead-ended here," Ryou admitted. "I mean, our best option right now looks like a plane ticket to Egypt."

"No, our best option is to kill everyone here," Bakura countered.

"Is not."

"...okay, no, it's not. But it's the easiest."

"Why the hell is Kaiba so interested in me?" Ryou demanded, rising to his feet and wandering over to the door. "He seems like he sort of wants to molest me and sort of wants to analyze my brainwaves."

Bakura made a nondescript noise. "I blame it entirely on your looks. Don't you know anything about his reputation?"

"No," Ryou said with great interest. "Do tell."

Bakura twisted his head over his shoulder and smiled. "The kid told me. Anything pretty, any night of the week."

"Do you have any idea how wrong it is for Mokuba-san to be the one to tell you that?" Ryou inquired distractedly. "Wait, wait, never mind, your ethics come from a time when incest was considered quite all right."

The handcuffs unclicked and were tossed in the direction of the briefcase. "Incest? You, opposed to incest?"

"I, er, um, don't look at me like that, um, um, mmmph!"

Bakura smiled and licked his front teeth. "You want me to – ack! You're being particularly vicious. Hey, hey, no biting the big veins! Bad hikari! Bad! Ow ow ow ow ow!"

"Stop whining," Ryou retorted cheerfully. "You know you get off on it."

"I'm already in a hell of a lot of pain, so stop it!" Bakura complained.

Ryou promptly complied. "Sorry."

"He can't have you, you know."

"Hmm?" Ryou blinked and looked up.

"He can't have you. I'll destroy the fucking world if I have to, but he can't have you," Bakura said fiercely.

"Yami...?"

"Why do you keep talking at the most inopportune moments?" Bakura wondered out loud.

"What do you mean by that?" Ryou demanded.

"Here I am, with the best pre-makeout lines on the face of the planet, and you go and keep talking." Bakura held Ryou out at arm's length to glower at him. "You are making this whole fuckbuddy thing really unappealing unless we're actually going at it."

"Ya-mi," Ryou drawled, raising one eyebrow.

"Yeah?"

"I'm about to scream from the amount of stress and pain hammering at the back of my mind. Start. Talking. Now."

Bakura shuffled a bit, muttered a few incoherent things about nosy, annoying, telepathic –

"I heard that."

"Shut up!"

Ryou sighed, flung himself dramatically back onto the wall, and slid to the floor, one hand still extended to the other boy. "C'mere."

Bakura warily complied. "What's this now? Ack!" he added when Ryou hugged him enthusiastically.

"These are the non-fucking benefits of not shoving me into a corner of your mind and stabbing various bits of your anatomy when I get pissed off," Ryou answered. "What're you worried about?"

"You. The kid. That crazy man who's running around screaming, 'Dance, meat puppets! DANCE!'"

"Mmm." Ryou slid one leg around Bakura's hips and shifted his weight a bit in order to be more comfortable.

"Wha – hey, hey, this is distracting!" Bakura squeaked.

"Talk," Ryou said warningly in his ear.

"I hate talking."

"No you don't. You just hate talking that isn't composed entirely of diabolical laughter and terrorizing mortals. And screaming really crazy shit like 'No! This cannot be!' when you're drunk off your ass and losing at some game that I'd rather not know about."

"...that was only once. And strip poker does not count as a game."

"Mhm. Talk."

"I have squidgy feelings under my ribs," Bakura finally declared.

"Aww," Ryou replied. "You're getting a crush on the French maid who runs around and calls doctors on command."

"I am not!"

"Okay, fine, fine." Ryou capitulated. "Tell me more. Like who the squidgy feeling pertains to."

"...mostly you," Bakura answered, after some thought. "Lately 's been the kid. But you, mostly."

"Me?" Ryou blinked.

"You weren't expecting that answer," Bakura said wonderingly.

"No," Ryou agreed. "I wasn't. I was expecting Mokuba-san mostly."

"If anyone hurts the kid, I'll kill them," Bakura said hopefully.

Ryou grinned. "I'll help. What about me?" he asked after a pause.

Bakura twisted to give him a long, considering look. "If anyone seriously hurt you, I...don't know." He looked vaguely puzzled. "I can't hurt anyone else like I can hurt myself, or like you. If anyone did anything to you like I do...?"

"Oh, come off it," Ryou teased. "I've died how many times now? Five? You'd just – mmmph mmr." Ryou glowered at Bakura over the hand that had been clapped over his mouth. And what was that for?

/I'm sick of talking,/ Bakura declared. /No more./

I'm not shagging you right now,Ryou said tiredly.

/Who said you had to?/

Ryou was in the middle of giving Bakura an extremely strange look when the door slammed open.

"Do you want to go home?" Monique asked abruptly.

Ryou scrambled to his feet and stared at her. "God yes. It was fun at first, but this...I don't want to be involved in this. I don't want..."

Monique promptly went over to the window and pressed her hand to the panel on the side. "If you go out this window, you'll come down right behind the fence out back. If you can climb the fence, you should be fine. We only have one or two guards out back, and they're easy enough to avoid."

"Aren't you going to get fired for this?" Ryou asked, blinking.

Monique put her hands on her hips and glared. It was an impressive sight. "I've been taking care of these two crazy boys ever since Gozaburo carked it. Seto-san's not going to throw me out anytime soon, mostly because he wouldn't last a week without me. He could try, and manage about three days before he went insane." She pressed her lips together grimly. "If you leave now, he won't keep having to talk himself into finding ways for you to stay around. He'll just let it go for the time being, and renew his interest sometime when he can handle it. This kidnapping thing is ridiculous."

"Amen to that," Bakura said, kicking the briefcase closed and throwing it out the now-opened window. "Wh-hey! Don't do that!" he added as Ryou dived after it.

"Catch me if you can!"

Bakura glowered at Monique. "That was entirely your fault." He promptly whirled and leaped out the window as well.

Monique blinked, then said, "Hmph," to the empty room.

Mokuba tossed and turned relentlessly, clawing noiselessly at the beddings.

Somewhere someone was screaming, screaming bloody murder through all the fire. Young and pained and screaming themselves raw because nothing was left but the all-consuming fire...

Metal in molds in a circle in a loop from white hot to red to gold with an eye that sees...

All-seeing eye of Ra of Horus of God of HimHerIt sees me...

Sees. KnowingTruthSeeingKnowledge Sees me.

is it wisdom or is it just destiny that tells me what to do?

what do i –

wake up...

Meanwhile, one lone guard was patrolling around the back of the Kaiba mansions. One somewhat trigger-happy lone guard who had orders to shoot on sight. You know, since she was the only guard of the back and all. She had to be somewhat better than your average goon.

Can we all say, "OH SHIT"?

Ryou, as per Murphy's Law, promptly rounded the corner and barreled straight into the poor hapless guard.

You'd think the poor thing had a sign on his back saying "KILL ME", wouldn't you?

Bang.

Mokuba Kaiba woke up screaming.

Out behind the Kaiba mansions, there was a rather perplexed guard standing with a gun drawn. On the ground about five feet in front of her was a white-haired boy bleeding copiously from the shoulder.

And then, very abruptly, there was no perplexed guard. There was instead a good deal of blood spatter, a rather savagely attacked corpse with its throat torn out, and a blood-soaked teenager clutching what looked squickily enough like a heart.

Ryou and Bakura stared at each other. Ryou barely had the capacity to register the situation. However, he was doing a lot better than Bakura, who was in full Raving Lunatic mode.

"Yami?" Ryou whispered.

It wasn't altogether clear as to which of them fainted first.

Blink. Once. Twice.

"About time you woke up."

"...buh?"

Mokuba got up from where he'd been sitting and began pacing back and forth across Bakura's bleary gaze. "You've been out for a while."

"...buh?"

"Two and a half days!" Mokuba threw his hands into the air. "Days, I tell you!"

"...buh?"

"And you still don't speak coherently!" Mokuba flung himself back into his recently vacated chair. "Do you have any idea what you just pulled?"

"...buh."

"Aaagh," Mokuba stated to the world at large. "Ryou-san? Please be awake?"

"Two and a half days?" Ryou repeated. "Did you take the bullet out?"

"You're coherent!" Mokuba scrambled around the bed and dropped to his knees to face Ryou. "You're my new savior! Niisama's mooching around snapping at lackeys, Monique's having a heart attack, and your yami is catatonic! Even our chauffeur is speaking less than usual! Which is mostly never, but still!"

"Did someone take the bullet out?" Ryou asked.

Mokuba nodded. "Monique. She's our token medical staff too. Has a very revealing nurse's uniform and everything."

"Is she an android?" Ryou asked suspiciously.

"No...?"

"She seems to do everything, know everything, and wear anything, and yet she looks extremely young," Ryou said plaintively.

Mokuba raised one eyebrow. "Niisama hired her. Do you really think he wants to surround himself with stupid people? She's a bleeding genius in a French maid suit."

"Mmmf." Ryou flopped over and started peeling back bandages.

"Hey, hey, don't touch that!" Mokuba smacked his hands away reproachfully. "You'll never heal if you do."

Ryou rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "You realize you're talking to someone who's been dead several times and heals about twice as fast as normal, right?"

"...oh. Right. That. What is this, number five?"

"I didn't die!"

"Shut up," Bakura said plaintively.

"No," Ryou retorted, sitting up and attempting to brush back his hair. He failed resoundingly.

"What are we supposed to do now?"

"Since you two couldn't evade one effing guard?" Mokuba finished.

"Something like that."

"Go home," Bakura suggested.

"...thank you, yami."

"Work out a deal with niisama," Mokuba suggested, staring fixedly at the bedside table. "You didn't really have a bargaining point before, but you do now. Mutual blackmail. You have – or had – a bullet in your shoulder."

"I'm not that evil," Ryou complained.

"I am," Bakura suggested.

"We know that."

"Yes, well, do you really want to be stuck here for the rest of your lives? Sooner or later I'm going to go to university, and this whole place will be a lot more boring," Mokuba predicted.

"Your brother could spawn," Bakura commented. "That would be interesting."

"Yami."

"Nnnh?"

"You hate small children."

"When did we start specifying that it was interesting for us?"

"...at the beginning of the conversation?"

"Oh."

Mokuba grinned. "Okay, I'm going to let you two get up. I think I'm going to go find Moni and niisama, because they've both been having minor heart attacks."

"You mentioned that," Ryou said sleepily.

"What, they were worried?" Bakura inquired.

"Just about everyone was," Mokuba answered. "Even the chauffeur was wondering about you two."

"Now that's devotion," Ryou muttered.

"You want devotion?" Bakura demanded as Mokuba rose and left the room. "I'll mumble mumble devotion mumble mumble pharaoh bastard mumble mumble mumble..."

Lords, Mokuba thought fervently, running a hand through his hair – or trying, as he'd knotted the entire thing as soon as he was awake enough to freak out from the news that Ryou'd been shot point-blank in the shoulder and Bakura had more or less ripped the guard apart who'd done it. He doesn't think that biting out the throat and tearing out the heart of anyone who hurts Ryou constitutes devotion? He'd better have been sarcastic.

"Moni!" Mokuba called, trotting down the hall. "Awake. Alive. Intact."

"Good," Monique said, looking tired. "Are you going to go tell Seto-san?"

Mokuba nodded. "I think we can cut a deal now."

"Oh God," Monique muttered. "Is that all you people think about? Deals? Blackmail? Weren't they just your friends to start with?"

Mokuba looked very struck by this line of thought. "Well, yes...sort of...maybe?"

"Or had you never met them before in your life?" Monique inquired.

"...somewhere in the middle?" Mokuba blinked. "It's very difficult to say. I've been kidnapped by Bakura-san, but I was kind of unconscious. And then there was the whole Duelist Kingdom issue, but that was one foul mess after another. And Battle City, they were there, but that wasn't exactly pleasant either."

Monique blinked. "Maybe you and your brother should try for the friends thing first, then. It might simplify matters."

"What, we just go, 'hello, we shot you, but now we looooove you'?"

"...well, I was hoping you could be a little more tactful than that. Damn, there's the door," Monique added, looking up. "Go talk to Seto-san. Go," she added, making shooing motions.

"Meh," Mokuba muttered. "I have a feeling I'm going to have a headache after this talk."

"Not only you," Monique called up, clattering down the stairs and straightening her skirt. She hurried down to the large doors and pressed the button to open them, not even bothering to look at who it was out of sheer exhaustion.

"We want to talk to Kaiba."

Monique looked up, then stared at two near-identical young men with impossibly styled and colored hair.

"Whatever it is, we're not buying – wait a minute," she said, her eyes narrowing. "It's you."

"We're going to talk to Kaiba right now," Yami no Yuugi declared. "Go and get him."

Monique glared. "Like hell." She took one step back and ground her heel into the button that swung the doors shut.

She then promptly craned her head to look at the sky – er, ceiling – reproachfully. "I did not need this right now!"

Poor girl.

Fluffy: Yes. Yes, we are evil. Why?

Manda Podima: Heh. Was hoping someone would. ;;

Saturn Imp: Eh, sorry about that.

lilmatchgirl: Well, the action will slow down, so maybe the angst will let up and it'll get comedic soon...?

Liviania: I like that image too.

R Amythest: Wait 'til gets to this bit. R. Definitely. I have proclaimed it thus for this chapter. Because Bakura is an evil bastard.

viva rose: ....I don't update enough to deserve a flag like that. sobbu

QueenOfGames:I'm waiting for the Mokuba fangirls to come along and murder me.

Ciu Sune: ...um, please don't die?

Kerei Kitsune:I'M SO SORRY!

Sailor Comet:I have been entertaining this private image of Ringed-out Mokuba for a long time now. Muahaha.

Higashikaze: Well, y'know, he does his stints as the SuperBaddie in the canon, so...yeah? He's not a nice person...but he's FUN.

SweetMisery: Gotta love them Sennen Items.

Kitten: blush Thanks!

Tuulikki: Heh. Thanks. About the sentence...I'm so much of a zombie right now I could be speaking in Portuguese and not notice, so I'll...get back to it later....beh. Sleep.

Fluffy: Now be a luv and review.