Slumbershipping (Ryo x Noa)

Ryo hated sleeping. He hated the loss of control that it represented, the loss of knowing what was going on around him. He especially hated the dreams that went along with it: scenes of the car crash, the hints and shadows of Yami no Bakura's bloody memories, the terrifying feeling of watching himself being used as a weapon against his friends...

So it was without joy that Ryo lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling and pretending that he didn't know it was nearly three o'clock in the morning.

"Make sure I wake up, okay?"

Hm? What had that been? A voice? Ryo blinked, and then realized that he had been just about to fall asleep. Maybe the voice was nothing more than a dream he had nearly fallen into. In that case, he was glad it had woken him up.

"I'm afraid to go to sleep...dad...I don't want to go to sleep."

There it was again! But Ryo's eyes were so heavy...he could not resist the call of the dream any longer.

"I don't...want to...go to sleep."

"It's okay, Noa. You can go to sleep. It's okay to sleep."

"If I sleep, I'll never...wake up again..."

"Yes you will. You will. I promise."

"What...what if...I don't?..."

"I promise, Noa. I promise that you will wake up again."

"O...okay...only if...you promise..."

Ryo stood in swirling gray mists. He couldn't see the ground, but he knew it was there. Someone else was there too. He was...not tall, at least a head shorter than Ryo. His school uniform appeared fancy, but also somewhat dated. He was turned away from Ryo, but Ryo could still see that his shoulders were shaking.

"Hello?" he said tentatively. "Are you...okay?"

The boy jolted, and whipped around. His eyes were wide with fright, and dripping with barely hidden tears.

"Who – who are you?" he asked. "How did you get here?"

"My name is Ryo," Ryo said. "Ryo Bakura. Are you okay?"

The boy swallowed, then shook his head slowly.

"No," he said. "I'm not all right..."

Ryo took a step forward, feeling more than a little confused, but concerned all the same.

"Can I do anything?"

"We only just met. Why would you care?"

"Well...someone's got to take the first step, right?"

The boy looked at him, both scared and surprised. He scuffed one shoe across the ground, and ducked his head.

"I'm...I'm lost," he said. "I'm afraid to close my eyes...because what if I don't open them again? I'm not even sure where I am. I'm supposed to go somewhere...but where?"

His voice cracked on the last sentence. Ryo came forward again, so that he was standing in front of the boy.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The boy sniffed.

"Noa. Noa Kaiba."

Everything came rushing to Ryo then. He remembered that name: Yugi had told him about it after Battle City was over. He was the digitized version of Gozaburo Kaiba's son, Seto and Mokuba's adopted brother, who died before they came to the Kaiba household. He had tried to escape back into the real world in Mokuba's body, but had come back to rescue them all when the computer was in danger of being destroyed. Why was the boy here, in Ryo's dream?

Except it didn't feel like a dream anymore. The world felt solid, real. Even Noa seemed more real that before.

"What?" Noa asked, his voice still wavery and dream like. "What's wrong?"

"Noa," Ryo asked. "Why are you lost?"

Noa considered this for a moment.

"I...well...I'm just not sure where to go," he said. "I'm really nothing more than a computer virus...I can't even be sure that I'm the real Noa, you know?"

"I don't understand."

"Well, what if my soul went someplace else when I died? What if I'm just a copy? Can humans really become computers?" Noa asked, a dull tone in his voice. "I've kept asking myself these stupid questions since the computer blew up. I don't know where I am, I don't know where I'm going. Will I...be like this forever...?"

Ryo knelt in front of Noa as the tears started to run down the young boy's face.

"Noa, it's okay," he said. "Don't cry."

Noa shook his head.

"I'm so tired," he said. "But I'm so afraid to sleep. What if I never wake up again?"

Ryo sighed softly. He thought the same thing, sometimes.

"Maybe you're tired for a reason, Noa," he said. "Maybe you need to sleep, so that you can wake up somewhere better."

"My dad told me that once. I woke up in a digital world where nothing ever changes. I wouldn't call that better."

Noa's voice was sardonic, too old and cynical for his apparent age.

"But this is different, now," Ryo said. "I'm afraid to sleep too, you know? But here we both are. In a dream together."

Noa shifted, not looking convinced.

"You know what my mom always told me?" Ryo said. "About bad dreams?"

Noa didn't answer. Ryo pressed on.

"If you fall asleep in one dream, you can wake up in a better one," he said. "Maybe that's true here."

"What if I'm not real?" Noa said. "What if the real Noa died already?"

"I can't answer those questions. But I think you can...if you let yourself."

He gripped Noa's shoulders, and the two pairs of eyes met for a long moment. Slowly, Noa's eyes started to flutter, and his knees started to shake.

"I...I think..." he said. "I think I'm going to sleep now."

He collapsed, falling into Ryo. Ryo tried to support him, but the boy simply dissolved. Ryo didn't have time to wonder if this had worked when the misty world exploded around him.

He awoke with a groan. What time was it? His head hurt. He rolled over to see the clock.

There was a face on the pillow beside him.

Ryo nearly cried out. But when he had calmed himself down, he realized that he knew that face. Was he still dreaming? Ryo pinched himself. It hurt so much that he nearly cried out again. No way...this was...real.

Noa's eyes fluttered open.

"Ugh," he said.

His eyes found Ryo's, and widened. Ryo smiled sheepishly.

"Well...you woke up again, huh?"

A/N: I love Noa so much. *squee!* Even though he's just a filler villain, I can't help but love him. Okay, I finally caught up, and I can get back to Slateshipping next!