Chapter Six:

Yugi pushed open the door to the apartment, walking inside with Joey right on his heels. He sighed as Joey bumped into the jamb, then the side table on which stood an entrance lamp, making said lamp wobble, and lastly into the back of the couch. The reason was Joey had his copy of the script open and was reading intently.

"Joey, don't you think you should stop long enough to see where you're going?" Yugi asked, edging the entrance lamp back to its original position and shutting the front door.

Joey lowered the script and looked at him. "Sorry, Yug'. But it's so awesome! Have you read any of it?"

"Since I drove us home, no."

He had taken the keys from Joey and driven home because Joey already had his nose buried in his script almost as soon as Erica had walked out of the door. Yugi must have left his own here at home, though he'd thought he'd have them on him when they went to the hotel.

Joey grinned, holding out his script, where he appeared to be on page five. "I just got to the part where we stop at the diner where we meet the siblings. There's a lot of set-up dialogue before that, where we're driving home from college, but it still looks like this is going to be a great movie. It's weird, Yug'. Jason is almost completely like you."

"He is?"

"Yeah. Look, on page two, he breaks up a fight between me, Adam, and Sota's character Akihiro. On page three, he sits on a rock at a rest stop and sketches the view down a valley, really passionate about it. It's like you and games, only with drawing. He's a sweet guy, a peacemaker, kinda quiet, but really friendly."

Yugi smiled. He held up his own copy of the script. "And how close is Adam to you?"

Joey laughed. "I think he's kinda like me, yeah. He's a brawler. But he's into sports and I think he's a womanizer."

Not as close to Joey as it had first seemed, then. Joey was a brawler, but he wasn't much of a sports player or follower and he was far from the type to love 'em and leave 'em. Yugi looked at his script, then back up at Joey.

"Okay, why don't I go make us some hot chocolate and we'll sit down and start memorizing our lines?"

Joey grinned and flopped on the couch. "This is awesome."

Yugi set his script on the entrance table, then walked into the kitchen. He put a pot of milk on to boil, then rummaged in the cabinets until he found the half-empty package of chocolate chip cookies. He piled those onto a plate, added the boiling milk to mugs, then the cocoa powder, then carried the whole lot out into the living room. Joey took the plate from him to set it on the coffee table, pulling his legs up onto the couch, and resting his forearm on the armrest of the couch. After retrieving his script from the entrance table, Yugi sat down, pulling his legs in under him and leaning his forearm against Joey's thigh, the small of his back against his stomach, his feet under Joey's ribs. They often cuddled like this on the couch.

Yugi turned to the first page of the script, under the cover letter. It jumped in right on the scene of the four main characters packing up the SUV they would be sharing on the ride back to town. A few lines of dialogue established the implication that the four of them had been friends since high school and had applied to, and been accepted to, the same college, and that they were returning home for summer break after their first year away. Indeed, as Joey had said, Adam and Akihiro quickly got into a fight over how to pack the SUV and Jason intervened. The four got on the road and headed out of town on their destination halfway across the country to home. The characters' personalities were obvious from the first minute, and exactly as Erica had described to them. Jason was the quiet, artistic type who was nevertheless friendly and often in good humor. Yugi tried to get a feel for the character, picturing himself doing the things Jason did in the script.

"I don't know how to draw."

"What?" Joey asked, clearly pulled from deep within the script.

"Where he sits on the rock and draws the view. How am I supposed to do that?"

"Oh. I dunno. I bet you won't have to. If they do show the picture, like with an over-the-shoulder shot, Erica will have someone else draw who has the talent for it and just give the picture to you to hold. You know, like dubbing over someone else's singing voice."

Yugi nodded, going back to reading. He leaned forward to snag his cooled mug from the coffee table, sipping it while he read through the first act. An hour later, he was finished, his brain hurting from trying to memorize everything, including the italicized areas indicating movement, scene changes, and character expressions. Joey, a bit of a slower reader, was nearly at the end as Yugi flipped his script closed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The first act really didn't have anything all that interesting to it. It was mostly set up, establishing character, setting, and motivation. Clearly, the real action wouldn't happen until later, although their characters had met the characters of Rin and Ishio. Erica was right, Rin's character immediately went for Yugi's, openly flirting with him in a scene in the bathroom of the diner the group stopped at after Yugi's side agreed to take the siblings to their hometown on the way after causing an accident that totaled the siblings' junky old car. Yugi felt embarrassed just reading the flirty scene, wondering how he was going to be able to pull off acting when he couldn't read the dialogue without blushing.

"Wow, Yuki sure has a thing for you," Joey said, flipping closed the script.

"I know," Yugi said.

"Ah, come on, you'll be fine. Come on, let's practice memorizing a bit. I'll read everyone else's lines from the script page and you try to memorize yours."

They spent the next few hours attempting to memorize their lines. Joey proved to be surprisingly adept, even better than Yugi, possibly because he was so into the idea of being in the movie, and possibly because of his training as a duelist. Both he and Yugi had been required to memorize many monster, spell, and trap card names, attributes, weaknesses, and abilities and they were good at it.

When they decided to finally take a break, Joey was in great spirits. The scripts sat together on the coffee table with the empty cookie plate and hot cocoa mugs, and the pair of them had moved on to the kitchen to prepare dinner. Yugi washed, peeled, and cut vegetables while Joey fried hamburger meat to put in tomato sauce for spaghetti. He couldn't stop chattering about the movie.

"We are going to be great at this," he said, turning over a large portion of browning hamburger. "We had no trouble memorizing that stuff, Yug'. Erica's going to be proud. What do you think's going to happen to us, later on?"

Yugi frowned, adding sliced mushrooms to the tomato sauce. It felt odd for Joey to refer to the characters as 'us' when the movie was fiction, but Yugi didn't object. "I don't have any idea," he said honestly. "She said the movie was called Massacre Valley or something. I suppose it'll be about a bunch of mutants slaughtering people who wander onto their property. Isn't that how they always go?"

Joey sighed. "You sound just like Kaiba. They're not *all* like that. Not Erica's. Yeah, there's a lot of blood and guts, and that's intentional, but there's also a lot of actual story to them. She hasn't gotten a lot of rewards and nominations for nothing."

"Sorry. Anyway, I don't think we can really guess until we get at least the second part of the script. This one didn't really set anything up just yet."

"True. What do you think of our fellow actors?"

"I think everyone is fine."

"Even Ishio?"

"Well..."

Joey laughed. "Come on, Yug', admit it, he's an ass."

"We didn't really get a chance to get to know him."

"He's an ass. You don't have to get to know him to know that."

"Kaiba acted like that, and look-"

"He's still an ass."

Yugi smiled a little, but admonished Joey just the same. "Yami loves him."

"Yeah, well. I'm with Sota. Ishio needs to kick it, and soon. The sooner he bites it, and gets off set, the better the movie'll be. You watch; he'll be the most hated character by the audience. They'll probably cheer when the killer guts him."

"That's not nice. Besides, if he's such a horrible character, he'll probably stay on to close to the end, if he gets killed at all. That way, when and if he does get his comeuppance, it will seem all the sweeter."

"Wow, Yug', cold-hearted."

"I'm just speaking from the metaphorical audience's perspective."

"Uh-huh."

Later, Yugi was passing the front hall on the way to the kitchen, he frowned at the key hook above side table beside the front door. It held Joey's keys, the extra house key, and the keys to the Kame Game Shop, but his personal set were missing. He walked over, peering around the lamp, the letter holder, in the drawer, and behind the side table.

"What'cha doing, Yug'?"

"I can't find my keys," Yugi said, straightening up. "I thought they were on the hook when I hung up yours when we got home."

Joey frowned, coming over and peering around the side table as well. "Are you sure? Maybe you left them upstairs on the dresser or the nightstand. Or the kitchen counter. Or the bathroom counter." A grin spread across Joey's face.

Yugi flushed again. He knew he had trouble keeping track of his keys and his wallet. He had a habit of throwing them wherever he was at the moment, rather than dropping them off at one place each time. For all his usual spasticness regarding anything else, Joey was meticulous about putting his things away where they belonged. At least, when it didn't involve dirty clothes. Those ended up everywhere.

"Just help me find them."

Joey grinned and dutifully trotted into the downstairs bathroom. Yugi went upstairs, using the upstairs bathroom as well as searching it for his keys. His wallet he found on the dresser in the bedroom where he'd placed it the night before, but his keys were not there, nor anywhere in the room. He sighed and checked the closets and the guest room, but the keys were nowhere to be found.

"Dunno what to tell you, Yug'," Joey said, coming upstairs. "Didn't find 'em in the kitchen, laundry room, or the living room. Where'd you put them this time, Spiky?"

Yugi sighed, putting his hands on his hips in irritation. "Who knows. Well, you'll have yours, won't you? They'll turn up."

Joey grinned teasingly. "I don't know. What set are you on, Yug'? Ninth?"

"Fourth," Yugi muttered.

Joey laughed, reaching out to ruffle Yugi's hair, then went into the bathroom for a shower. Annoyed with himself, Yugi stripped the bed and hauled the bedclothes down to the laundry room to be washed. As he was shoving sheets and detergent into the washer, he mentally tried to retrace his steps, but he just couldn't remember where he'd set his keys. He thought he had hooked them by the front door, like he was supposed to, but he wasn't sure now. He really did have a problem with just leaving them anywhere.

'They'll turn up,' he thought to himself.

Upstairs, he put fresh sheets, pillowcases, and a comforter on the bed. The shower was still running, so Yugi went into the closet to change clothes. It was now about noon, so there was still time to go to the store. The problem was, he couldn't drive his car without his keys.

"Joey, I'm borrowing the keys to your car to go to the store, until I can find my own!" he hollered through the bathroom door.

"I'll call the locksmith!" Joey shouted back. "They probably have your keys on file by now!"

Yugi shook his head, grabbing his wallet from the dresser and heading downstairs, grabbing Joey's keys from the ring and locking the front door. Trust Joey to always tease him unmercifully. Maybe Mean Yugi would have to make another visit.

Smiling at the thought, Yugi made a quick trip to the store for the essentials they were low on. At the store, he was stopped no less than a dozen times by people exclaiming over him being in an Erica Lynch movie. Yugi did his best to be polite, but even he was getting impatient by the time he had paid for his items and made it to the car. Even as a Duel Monsters Champion, he'd never had to deal with random fans in the street like this.

When he got back, Joey was parked on the couch, showered and dressed, watching Deathstrike IV. Yugi walked right in on a person strapped face-down on a massage table, having a small circular saw chewing into his chin to separate the front of his face from the rest of his skull.

"Joey!"

Joey looked over the back of the couch where Yugi was turned away, still holding grocery bags, wincing at the sound of a wet scream rapidly being cut off and replaced by just the high-pitched whine of the saw. Joey hit the pause button on the remote.

"Come on, Yug'. In two days, we're going be in one of these. You better get used to it." Joey flashed him a macabre smile. "Who knows? In a week, you or I could wind up biting it like that!"

tbc...