Hello hello! I don't have much to say right now so when I think of something I will write it for you! Hee hee.

After completely bandaging the other yami, Bakura had taken the liberty of getting a towel for Mariku's waist, since clothing could be irritating to his sensitive skin, and had carried him all of the way upstairs to one of a few made-up guest rooms.

He then returned downstairs to the living room and fell back on the couch for a little bit of a rest. Ryou had gone upstairs to shower after getting some of the blood from Mariku onto him he only thought it an appropriate reaction.

Bakura didn't sleep much thanks to the constant pain running its course up and down his back. Not only was the wound painful, but he was bleeding as well and he hadn't bothered to do anything for himself quite yet; he was too exhausted.

Fifteen minutes after he had collapsed on the couch for a rest, Mariku had finally awoken from his own little nap and was careful to make his way down the stairs to the living room where Bakura was laying quietly.

Mariku rubbed at his back and felt pain in only one area and yet the rest of his body felt less pained. "I have a strong feeling of pain in my back…" he murmured. He shrugged and looked over to Bakura. "How are you feeling?"

Bakura looked back at Mariku and then turned his eyes back to the ceiling and sighed lightly. "I am fine I guess…" Mariku nodded and looked into the Dining Room behind him and saw the pile of bloodstained clothing on a chair that belonged to him. "I'll never be able to get those stains out…" He muttered and walked into the other room. He picked up the clothing and was not happy with the look of his fashionable outfit. His entire outfit was of course stained with his own blood, but what he did not favor was that it was torn and tattered.

"Great…my clothes are full of holes and I'm in a bath towel," he dropped his hands to his sides and leant his head back and groaned. "How could things get any worse?"

"I have clothes that you could wear if you wanted." Bakura offered from the other room, still stationary on the couch. "I—thanks." Bakura stood up off of the couch slowly and started past Mariku for the stairway.

Mariku then caught a glimpse of the Bakura's shirt on the back and was quite shocked to see it even though he was used to seeing things like this. He clasped his left hand over his mouth and looked at Bakura's back with large eyes.

Bakura looked back at Mariku from the fifth step of the stair and was confused with Mariku's newest reaction. "What?"

"You're bleeding, Bakura." Mariku uttered from beneath his hand. Bakura turned on the light in the darkened stairway. Mariku felt his back, "I knew that strange pain didn't belong to me."

Bakura reached a hand behind himself and winced, he then pulled his hand back front and saw his fingers dredged in his own blood. Before now he had not truly known the extent of his injuries and he thought it had merely been a scratch. "As I can see."

Mariku hurried back to the Dining Room where he had noticed the medical kit had been left and scrambled back to the base of the stairs with his arms full with the large kit. "Let's go upstairs to your room. You can lay down while I clean up your back." Mariku juggled the white box into one arm and walked up the stairs and took Bakura's hand and dragged him up the stairs the rest of the way.

The persistent keeper helped Bakura to take off his shirt, and then he helped him to lie down on his chest on his bed. Mariku set the box of medical supplies down on the bed beside him and opened it and started shuffling through all of the supplies.

The keeper then hurried off out of the room and returned a moment later with a dampened cloth. He sat on the edge of the bed and carefully dabbed at the bloody wound on Bakura's back. The raider winced and groaned lightly. Mariku drew his hand back quickly and looked down at Bakura. "I'm sorry!" He had quickly apologized.

"It doesn't matter…" Bakura had brushed it off like this was nothing. Mariku dabbed more lightly at the blood as he tried to clean it off. "I'm sorry that you had to come rescue me from the Shadow Realm. It's really pathetic of me to have gotten stuck there in the first place." Mariku again apologized.

Mariku set the cloth aside and removed the lid from a tube of antiseptic cream and rubbed it on Bakura's back. The robber winced and breathed deeply to get through the pain. Mariku blew on it lightly, "Sorry, I forgot to warn you…"

"Whatever…it doesn't matter."

"I'm almost done."

Mariku shuffled through the supplies again and found some sort of homemade healing cream that he assumed would work well so he uncorked that as well and dumped it on and rubbed that into the clean wound. He leaned down and was face to face with Bakura. "Do you think you could stomach sitting up?" He inquired.

Bakura nodded and sat up slowly on the bed and whimpered when sat up at full height. Mariku pulled a large white bandage roll from the kit and started to wrap it very carefully around Bakura's bare torso and proceeded to tie it off as soon as he had finished. "I'm finished."

Mariku backed off of the bed and started to pack up the medical supplies left sitting out on the bed. Bakura stood from his bed and went to his closet to grab a more suitable shirt than the one he had worn that was covered in blood. "Thanks." He merely said and pulled his shirt on carefully. Mariku nodded and walked to the door. "You should probably go right to bed. I'll go clean up the couch and go to bed as well."

Bakura rubbed the back of his neck and yawned. "If that's what you want then don't let me get in the way." He approached Mariku slowly and without any hesitation pulled Mariku close and kissed him passionately, something he hadn't done in such a long time. He released Mariku and returned to his bed and crawled in under the covers.

Mariku shut his door slowly and was blushing brilliantly. He touched his lips as he walked down the stairs to the living room. Just then, there was a frantic knocking on the front door. Mariku walked to it quickly and opened the door to see Malik standing there looking terribly winded as if he had been running around.

"Malik? What the hell are you doing here?"

"Mariku, where is Ryou! Is he here?"

"Yes, he is. Where were you?"

"I have been running around all over the damn place looking for him. He had left the club and no one was home earlier when I came by here looking for him." Mariku stood aside and let his hikari in and closed the door. "I think he is asleep already."

Malik sighed his relief and was a little disappointed that Ryou had already gone to bed, he didn't want to wake him so he decided that he would just see him in the morning. He walked into the living room with Mariku and saw the bloodstained couch and was in a bit of a shocked state from the sight.

"What happened here? Did you kill Bakura?"

Mariku walked out to the kitchen and came back with a bucket of cleaning supplies and knelt down beside the couch. "No, there was a bit of a problem earlier." Malik knelt down beside him and grabbed a cloth from the bucket.

"What kind of problem?"

"I got myself trapped in the Shadow Realm and Bakura came and saved me. It was a messy situation."

"I can see by the bandages on your body. I'm glad you're both alright though." Malik and Mariku scrubbed at the couch for a while and talked as they did so. The two males had never been so close as to have a conversation or ever share a chore.

I'll leave you there for now. Just so you all know so it is no surprise, I am planning on ending this story relatively soon. It saddens me to say so, but that gives me the opportunity to work on another story in the making. You may not want to read it or whatever, but it is going to be a JouxSeto fic. I haven't come up with a name yet, but I will eventually. Lata!