Touzoku Ou Bakura raised his head at the sound of distant voices—so distant no ordinary person could have heard. Then again, he had never been ordinary in life—now, as a muse to a bunch of lunatics, he was about as unordinary as you can get.

A tan hand brushed white hair from his face. Peering into the distance with impossibly keen eyes, he discerned four approaching figures. Recognizing an unmistakable crown of ebony-spiked hair, he groaned and muttered, "Oh fuck, there are two of them."

The figures approached quicker, and he leaned against the doorframe as he waited. He wished the annoying prick who happened to be inside could be the one outside right now—Touzoku Ou wasn't particularly good at conversation of any source.

But as it was, he didn't have time to say anything before Yu-Gi-Oh extracted a knife he had been hiding in his belt and lunged.

Before anybody who happens to be a fan of the Thief King—among which I am included—happens to worry, Yu-Gi-Oh went right through the white-haired rogue and slammed into the wall behind him.

His o.o expression vanishing, Touzoku Ou said calmly, "Didn't Adularia tell you? You can't kill me, I'm a muse—besides, I'm already dead."

"Finally here?" Atemu asked, walking into the door. Looking down at Yu-Gi-Oh, who was strumming his fingers against the floor and muttering under his breath, he asked sympathetically, "You went through him, didn't you?"

Yu-Gi-Oh nodded, clearly furious. "I'm a muse, too," Atemu pointed out, bending over to pick up the knife. "I won't go through him."

"Absolutely not!" Touzoku Ou shouted, snatching the knife away. Malik, Kaiba, and Yu-Gi-Oh stared. They clearly were astounded that anybody—muse or no—could move that fast.

"Have you forgotten what Adularia said? No killing! I don't know about you, but I don't want to be molested again. That woman is strong, no matter how skinny she is!"

(A/N: All of that is true: I love 'glomping' the Bakuras, I'm a black belt in three kinds of martial arts, and I'm really thin—especially in comparison to Touzoku Ou)

Atemu smiled impishly. "She didn't molest me." (A/N: True again. I hate Atemu's guts)

Touzoku Ou's eyes narrowed. "Forget the rules," he hissed, shooting each word like an arrow—precise and cruel. He let out a roar which caused Atemu to yelp and flee, barely avoiding getting stabbed. Yu-Gi-Oh, Kaiba, Bakura, and Malik watched as the white-haired bandit king chased the Pharaoh out of the room.

The door snapped shut the minute they were all in. Yu-Gi-Oh immediately jumped to his feet and started pounding on it, pulling, kicking, all to no avail.

"You can't lock me up like this!" he shrieked. "Let me go! What about my Miranda rights? You're supposed to say I have the right to remain silent! Nobody said I have the right to remain silent!"

"Pharaoh, you have the right to remain silent!" barked Bakura, pressing his hands over his ears. "What you don't have is the mental capacity!"

"I'm going to go explore this prison," Malik informed them. "Listening to you two might make me lose my mind."

"Isn't it lost already?" Yu-Gi-Oh asked, and had to duck very quickly. Malik's briefcase bounced off the wall and he dashed over.

He inspected it and moaned. "You dented it!" he screamed at Yu-Gi-Oh. "Isis and I are having financial problems as it is, with me having no job and Mariku causing so much property damage!"

Under his breath, Kaiba muttered, "Gods damn I hate my life."

No one could disagree with him there.

«§Ж§»

Touzoku Ou and Atemu took easily an hour to finish their little chase. Bakura, Kaiba, Malik, and Yu-Gi-Oh had spent the time unpacking and exploring and trying in vain to escape.

There had only been one bedroom available (Touzoku Ou and Atemu were muses, so they had to do what they said) and Yu-Gi-Oh and Malik had taken it.

The reason for this was that Bakura and Kaiba had flatly refused to share a room with Yu-Gi-Oh and, since Kaiba rarely slept and Bakura was very flexible, they had agreed to take the large and admittedly quite beautiful living room. The five of them were sitting in that room right then, and Kaiba was already typing away.

"Well, besides 'inspiring' the Goddess of Evil Pairings, we have to make sure you don't break the rules and know what you have to do, blah-blah-blah," Touzoku Ou informed them. "His Royal Pain-In-The-Ass Highness is checking the food supply, so I had better tell you that you aren't allowed to kill each other or leave."

"Yeah, right, like you needed to tell me that!" Yu-Gi-Oh shouted. Bakura groaned loudly, recognizing this as the beginning of one of his rants. Yu-Gi-Oh listed his complaints, ticking them off on his fingers as he did. "I've been burnt, zapped, fried, jolted, jostled, shaken, stirred—"

"What are you, a Pharaoh or a drink?" Kaiba snapped, still typing. For all his overtime work, new things appeared every day and Adularia would probably keep them very busy for the next seven months.

"—shocked, pinched, and bitten," he finished, glaring at the brunette.

"I must hold on before I, too, am entirely out of sanity," muttered Malik, massaging his temples against a fierce headache—you would have had one, too.

Insulted, Yu-Gi-Oh retorted, "I have more sanity now than you ever have!" He ducked the Millennium Rod just in time to keep his precious hair.

By now officially fed up, he shouted, "I swear, if one more thing gets pitched at my head…" He ducked Touzoku Ou's knife, extracted seemingly out of nowhere.

"How dare you—" Bakura threw a knife as well. "How dare you—" he ducked another of Touzoku Ou's knives. "How dare you—" another of Bakura's. "Will you cut it—" Kaiba's briefcase hit his forehead, and he passed out.

Being an ancient spirit, his swoon lasted only a few moments longer than Touzoku Ou and Bakura's admittedly long laughing fit did, and he sprung up in fury.

"That does it!" he yelled, rubbing his aching forehead. "I challenge each and every one of you assholes to a Shadow Game right this minute!"

Touzoku Ou lifted his eyebrow, an act which looked rather strange due to the three intersecting scars on his cheek. "All four of us? And no killing, remember?"

Yu-Gi-Oh crossed his arms and sulked.

Within moments Atemu returned, earning a glare from those who thought he had taken too long. The Pharaoh looked worried, and the cause was explained the moment he set down the meal.

A bowl of grapes, a sticky chocolate cake, six beef ribs that were as much fat as meat, a plate of shrimp with four kinds of sauce, a saucer of raisins, and a pitcher of strawberry lemonade.

"What!?" cried Malik.

"That can't feed all of us!" Yu-Gi-Oh protested.

"Duh," he replied. "Now, if you don't mind me, muses need to muse. Touzoku Ou, make sure they don't kill each other."

"You know," said Bakura suddenly, tossing his pale lovely hair over his shoulders. "That game might not be such a bad idea—but let's play for food, instead of souls."

"Regular cards?" Malik asked, holding up a deck. "There are too many of us for Duel Monsters."

"Sure," Yu-Gi-Oh replied, and Bakura noticed him finger his wristband delicately. "Since there are more of us, I think we should do poker or something."

"Fine," Bakura replied with a shrug. He glanced over his shoulder. "Kaiba?"

"No thanks," Kaiba replied without looking up from his computer screen, his fingers darting over his keyboard with unerring swiftness.

"Suit yourself," Bakura replied.

"Where are you going?" Malik asked Touzoku Ou as he left. He was already beginning to shuffle. "Aren't you hungry at all?"

"I am a muse," Touzoku Ou replied, in the tone one might use when speaking to a person who was either clueless or retarded. "I need to muse. Adularia likes me better, and I'll bring more knives this time. Besides, reviewers feed me." And so the game commenced.

But, in a few minutes, Bakura slapped his cards onto the carpet—Yu-Gi-Oh and Malik had already done so, but not facedown. "Excuse me, I thought I was the evil one here? Why am I the only one not cheating?"

Malik and Yu-Gi-Oh burst into a stream of protests. He waited, bored, through "Me? Cheat? Never!"s and "Pharaohs do not cheat!"s and "I don't know what you're talking about"s before deciding to prove his mind.

"Oh? Then tell me why Malik has three pairs when you can only have five cards, and his Royal Piss-Ass has five kings when there are only four kings in the game and I have two of them!"

"Umm…Err…" at this point, Yu-Gi-Oh would send his rival to the Shadow Realm, but of course he knew that Bakura happened to be more than capable of returning the favor and Yu-Gi-Oh certainly wouldn't want that! "I…I promised Yugi…that I would write to him! That's right! I promised to write! Bye!"

"Hey!" Malik cried. "Traitor! You can't even write Japanese and you know it!" Turning to Bakura, he said, "I have to write to Isis to make sure Mariku hasn't killed anybody. Bye!"

Bakura blinked at the rapidly fleeing figures, then shrugged and reached for a rib—only to be encumbered by a hand with fingers as long, pale, and slender as his.

Blinking into a familiar pair of sapphire blue eyes, he asked, "What are you doing? I thought you weren't hungry."

"Actually, I just didn't want to duel that schizophrenic idiot after throwing a briefcase at his head—he's driven me insane a few times, you know."

"Which is one of the good things about being insane already," Bakura replied with a shrug.

"So can I eat or not?" Kaiba replied.

"Go ahead," he told him, starting to slice the cake. "I can't eat all of this myself, and I'd rather not leave any leftovers."

"Why are you having the cake first?"

"Because I don't want to imagine the Pharaoh or Malik on sugar high," he replied, taking a bite. "Mm…this isn't bad."

Kaiba, who was eating a rib, watched him savor each bite. "Fuck, you make eating cake look like a sin," he said without thinking, making Bakura snort for some reason.

"That's what the ibis said about ice cream," he replied, already grabbing the second slice.

Kaiba's eyes furrowed. Ibis…that was an Egyptian creature, right? A monkey…with a dog's head—oh, Jonouchi. He snickered. "In that case, I'm never saying it again." He finished off two ribs before looking at Bakura again and laughing.

"What?"

Feeling daring suddenly, Kaiba used his finger to swipe the blob of chocolate icing from Bakura's nose. He licked it off his finger. "You're right, it is good."

Bakura snorted and grabbed a spoon, filling it with icing and cake and chocolate shavings. Kaiba opened his mouth to ask what he was doing, and Bakura put the spoon in his mouth. Kaiba closed his mouth over it.

For a second all he tasted was metal, warm from Bakura's mouth. He moved his tongue, and encountered the sweet, delicious warmth of chocolate.

He closed his eyes as the spoon slipped from his lips, the sweetness filling his mouth with rich delight. He was unable to suppress a moan of pleasure.

Glancing up, he saw Bakura smirking at him and stuck his tongue out. The white-haired Egyptian rolled his eyes. "Oh, how mature."

"I'm the CEO of a huge company. I don't have to be mature."

"Whatever."

In the end, they both finished off every last bite. In between eating, they insulted Yu-Gi-Oh and chatted and insulted Yu-Gi-Oh and bickered and insulted Yu-Gi-Oh and laughed and insulted Yu-Gi-Oh. Did I mention all their insults towards poor Yu-Gi-Oh, who isn't really that bad?

(Touzoku Ou: Yes he is.
Priestess Aishisu: Shut up
Touzoku Ou: I'm a muse! I don't have to shut up just because you tell me to!
Priestess Aishisu: Do you want to be paired up with Haga?
Touzoku Ou: …
Priestess Aishisu: I didn't think so)

Kaiba had more fun in that hour or so than he usually did in a week. After eating, they played poker. Bakura won, and Kaiba demanded a rematch. This happened about thirty-eight times, and then Kaiba finally won.

Somewhere in the middle of his gloating over it, the poor guy ended up falling asleep in mid-sentence—I guess those three months not sleeping due to making sure he would have all his work done for seven months finally caught up with him.

Bakura snorted and picked up the long, lanky teenager with unusual care—especially for him. Laying him on the couch, he lay down next to him and promptly fell asleep as well.

Hey, even ancient Egyptian Spirits need to get some sleep sometimes.