Till Death Do Us Part

Chapter 7: Kaiba's Awakening

The light was sharp, piercing needles that stabbed and blinded his eyes. Noises filtered through it – high-pitched beeps, the steady hum of electronic equipment, low voices. It hurt the ears after becoming accustomed to nearly constant silence. The smell, too, of disinfectant was overwhelming. The voices became louder, but while they sounded urgent, they were much too garbled to make sense of.

Out of one nightmare and into another.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It wasn't so bright the second time Seto cracked open his eyes. The lights had been dimmed and he could make out a shadowy form leaning over him. He thought it was saying something, but his mind was refusing to process anything that complicated. Eventually the blurry shadow retreated, leaving him in peace to try to ponder the situation. He couldn't remember much beyond the moment of waking up – in a bed, apparently, with a firm mattress and light sheets that felt cool against his skin.

While he stared at the white ceiling above him, he realized that he felt oddly disconnected, as though he was having a difficult time accepting what his senses were relaying to his brain. He couldn't tell whether the sights, sounds and smells were real or an illusion. Somehow he expected things to shift if he waited long enough. Worst of all was the hollow feeling within himself, as though something important had been ripped out of him to leave a gaping, empty wound. The painful sense of unknown loss was almost too much to bear, and he closed his eyes again in hopes that he could escape it through sleep.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Although it felt like only a minute had gone by when he opened them again, he could tell that much more time than that had passed. The light had been turned off and the room was in shadow. Seto had never been afraid of the dark before, but somehow it seemed much more menacing now than in the past. Had he been swallowed by the darkness, too? Was it already too late to escape?

"Kaiba?" A sleep-filled voice came from his right.

Letting his head roll to the side, he squinted at the person who'd spoken. His eyes had adjusted a little better, and he could make out enough features to recognize the one who was sitting next to the bed – a short, delicate body, hair arranged in hideous spikes that Seto never believed were natural, abnormally wide eyes blinking against drowsiness and the dimness of the room.

'Yugi… I was talking to Yugi, and then Atemu…'

'…a kn-knife... I couldn't… there was blood. Yugi's…'

'Yugi said he couldn't tell me anything that I didn't already know. Makes sense if he was just a figment of my imagination, right?'

Seto inhaled sharply as the memories threatened to tear apart his aching head. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten in the first place. He's lost Jounouchi again.

"Wh-wh-" He struggled to speak but his throat was so dry the words kept getting stuck.

"Oh, Kaiba, you are awake!" Yugi, or at least the apparition of Yugi, stood up and left Seto's field of vision, but returned a moment later and held a cup out. "Here, you must be thirsty. The doctor said you could have some ice chips once you woke up. Anything more than that'd make you sick."

It hit Seto then that he honestly was thirsty. He couldn't recall the last time thirst or hunger had bothered him. Filing away the thought for later analysis, he attempted to reach for the cup but found he wasn't able to lift his hand more than an inch from the mattress before it trembled and dropped again. He was as weak as a newborn kitten.

Yugi noticed and brought the rim to Seto's mouth. "The weakness is only temporary," Yugi said, as though reading Seto's mind, and tipped the cup to allow some of the ice to slip into between Seto's lips. "After you get some real food into you and some exercise, you'll feel as good as new."

The chips of ice landed on his tongue and he let them melt in the heat of his mouth. The cool dribbles of water slipped down and moistened his throat.

"Where's Jounouchi? What'd you do with him?" he demanded, although his voice was rough and he could hardly speak above a whisper.

Yugi's shadowy form settled back in the chair. "Kaiba," he said hesitantly, "do you remember what, um, happened?"

An old, abandoned orphanage; the children long gone, either to loving homes or the merciless streets. The creak of the set as a weight is added to the swing next to his.

'How did you find me here?'

'I, er, followed the yellow brick road?'

Remembering made the headache ten times worse. "Damn it, mutt, you were the one who said we needed to stay together," Seto growled. He wondered if Yugi's Other Self, the so-called pharaoh, was going to appear as he had for Jounouchi.

"You're in the hospital, Kaiba. You and… and J-Jounouchi."

"Shut up," Seto hoarsely snapped, focusing on getting his muscles to work and limbs to cooperate rather than the other's meaningless words. "If Gozaburo couldn't best me, you sure as hell won't. I'll get out of here one way or another and save Jounouchi from whatever trouble he's gotten himself into this time."

Placing his hands on the edge of the mattress, Yugi leaned forward but jumped back a bit when Seto managed to swing one of his arms at him. "K-Kaiba! Calm down. You're confused and you'll end up hurting yourself if you keep flailing like that!"

"Don't touch me."

"But Kaiba…"

When was this horrible nightmare going to end? He tried to sit up, but Yugi was there gently, yet firmly pushing his shoulders down. It was humiliating to find out he wasn't even strong enough to fight back.

"Please, Kaiba! I'll have to call a nurse in if you don't stop this!"

"Tell me where Jounouchi is, then!"

"He's right beside you!"

Seto fell limp, staring in blank confusion up at Yugi's concerned face. After a few seconds of utter silence, Yugi placed his palm on Seto's forehead and slowly turned it to the left. Another bed came into view, pushed up against Seto's own, and on it was another person, so familiar and yet…

"No," Seto rasped, "No, that's not him."

"It is, Kaiba. Th-that's Jou."

The man, who both looked like Jounouchi and didn't, was lying on his back with the bed sheets pulled up to his chest. He appeared to have lost a lot of weight, almost skin and bones. There was no movement except for a steady rising and falling of his chest. He wasn't breathing on his own, however. In the dimness, Seto could make out a tube emerging from Jounouchi's mouth that would be attached to a medical ventilator, pushing oxygen into the unconscious man's lungs. There were other monitoring wires attached to him and an IV in his arm. He looked so fragile and small, nothing like the man Seto had been travelling with all this time.

"He's been on the ventilator for almost three days now," Yugi said softly. "He… he came very close to dying and the doctor says he probably won't ever w-wake up."

Seto lay quietly, watching the movement of the other's chest. It didn't make sense that Jounouchi was here. He could still feel the warmth of the kiss Jounouchi had placed on his cheek before pushing him through that door.

"You're lying. This is not happening."

"Kaiba, you and Jou-kun have been in a coma for five weeks. You woke up for the first time yesterday, so of course you're disoriented. But this is real, I swear."

Seto squeezed his eyes closed, not wanting to believe any of it. "No, I was with Jounouchi. We were looking for a way out…"

"And you found it, Kaiba. You're out, you're awake. Somehow you were connected with Jou." Yugi sounded like he was on the verge of tears, his words becoming more choked and harder to hear. "W-we couldn't separate you."

"What do you mean?" Seto asked in spite of himself.

"The doctor or nurses sometimes tried to move one of you out of the room for surgery, check-ups or physical therapy. They also wanted to put you in a private room because of your status. Every time they tried, though…"

Cracking open his eyes again, Seto slid his left arm gradually closer to the other bed. "What happened?"

"The one being taken away would start to seize and… and no matter what the doctors did, other things would happen. Jou's h-heart stopped the first time and one of your lungs collapsed when they tried to move you out later. It… it was scary, especially when you'd start screaming for each other. You'd only calm down and the doctors' treatments would only begin to work after they laid you side by side again."

Seto reached a little further and managed to brush his hand against the back of Jounouchi's own.

He pounded his fists against the bedroom door, trying and failing to get Jounouchi's attention. The other man was kneeling in the middle of the empty room, a long knife in his hands with the blade pointing at his stomach. Kaiba shouted and banged harder, mindless of the bruises that were sure to form later. The other's brown eyes were blank and staring. He raised the knife almost mechanically and then plunged it into his own stomach. Blood poured out… so much of it. Jounouchi's life drained away before Seto's very eyes.

And then he pulled Jounouchi, who had bravely struggled through a sea of red, through the barrier and they were together again. Unfamiliar relief flooded Seto when he noticed Jounouchi was whole again and alive. There was no wound and Jounouchi was going to be okay. Everything else vanished from Seto's mind except for that one single thought – Jounouchi was not going to die.

He curled his fingers around Jounouchi's wrist, feeling for the pulse. It was there, although faint. Still alive, then. He tightened his grip and said, "A coma. Why… how?"

Yugi sniffed. "An earthquake. Jou was visiting you at your office for some reason when it happened. The… the ceiling came down on you along with a bunch of stuff from the floor above. It took a whole day to dig you out."

This was all information he would never have thought up on his own. It was new to him and therefore he began to reluctantly accept that Yugi was really Yugi and Jounouchi was truly lying there, still unconscious. The flashbacks he and Jounouchi had experienced finally made sense, at least.

"Fuck you. I don't even know why I bothered to… Huh? H-hey, wh-what's going on?"

"Shit, we need to get out of here. This is—!"

"Kaiba! Oh fuck, are you okay?"

"Don't come any closer. Just go!"

"The hell I will! Hold on, I'm—"

"Get out! Listen to me—"

"No, I'm not leaving you!"

"You idiot! Shit, just get out of here before—"

"No. NO!"

Seto frowned, unable to recall anything more than that. He didn't even remember Jounouchi stopping by his office. "How could we have been sharing the same dream?" That was the part he honestly could not figure out.

"I have no idea. Nobody's heard of anything like it before, but there was definitely some bond formed between you two at the time. When they found you guys, Jounouchi was curled around your body, like he was trying to protect you."

His office in Kaiba Corp tower. Death waiting for them – a black, formless entity that rushed at them and forced them through the window. Jounouchi manoeuvring in an attempt to protect Seto from the impact as they fell. Somehow they had been reliving the danger of the earthquake, expecting to die at Kaiba Corp as they should have when the ceiling fell on them. They should have died. No wonder that darkness, no, Death had been hunting for them through it all.

"Why didn't he wake up with me, if we were connected?"

"I… I don't know. Jou got worse all of a sudden. Almost like he… he g-gave up. His heart stopped again. They managed to restart it, but… but he won't breathe on his own."

He watched with his heart in his throat as Jounouchi took that final step into the turbulent darkness. The blond was swallowed and disappeared from sight, and Seto couldn't move to stop him.

Jounouchi had given up and let himself be pulled in by the darkness. He'd allowed Jounouchi to give up.

"The door… i-it's open?"

So the door had been open for him to leave, but had remained closed for Jounouchi who had come too close to death to be able to wake up. Seto gritted his teeth, forcing back unfamiliar guilt and regret. Since when had he started caring so much for another person? But Jounouchi had somehow wriggled his way into Seto's heart and there was no changing that now. There was no way Seto was going to let Jounouchi do that to him and then leave without taking responsibility, either.

"Damn, troublesome mutt."

"Kaiba, what happened while—"

"Where's Mokuba?" Seto interrupted, too exhausted and stressed to explain anything about what he had gone through with Jounouchi in the other 'world'.

"Asleep in the next room. Honda's keeping an eye on him. The three of us haven't left the hospital for more than a couple of hours at a time since you two were admitted. Mokuba persuaded the doctors to let us stay. I think he promised them the donation of a new wing or something."

Seto smiled a little, proud of his younger brother.

"Should I go fetch him?"

"No," Seto said, "let him sleep. I'll talk to him in the morning."

As Yugi settled back in the chair, Seto continued to watch Jounouchi's face. There had to be a way to wake sleeping beauty, although he had a feeling a kiss was too simple an answer this time. He thought about it while massaging Jounouchi's limp wrist between his fingers. Drifting to sleep, he wondered if the next time he opened his eyes, he'd find himself still trapped in the mansion with Jounouchi curled up in his arms. Maybe this was merely another part to the never-ending dream.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

It was daylight the next time he awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep, and Mokuba was hovering over him. The teenager's smile was a mixture of relief and delight when Seto noticed him.

"Big brother!" Mokuba exclaimed, leaning to hug him.

A little strength had returned and Seto managed to lift his arms high enough to bring them around his brother's shoulders. At first he silently warned himself not to trust what he saw – he wouldn't be able to handle the disappointment if it turned out to be another hallucination – but the solidness and warmth of Mokuba's body as it pressed against his was all too real. Seto pressed his nose into Mokuba's long hair and inhaled deeply the rich, familiar scents of his beloved brother. He never wanted to let go again.

"Seto, oh Seto, I'm so glad you're okay. I thought… I thought you were going to die!" Mokuba sniffled and clung to him.

"Are you, Mokuba? Okay, I mean."

Mokuba sniffled again and pulled back a little to look at Seto's face. The younger Kaiba's eyes were red-rimmed and obviously holding back tears. He looked tired but otherwise healthy. "Yeah, I'm alright. Some things fell over in our school during the 'quake, but I hid under the desk like we've always practiced during the drills."

That wasn't what Seto had been referring to, but he nodded and pushed down the memories of a blindfolded, naked and terrified Mokuba screaming for his brother to save him. It was impossible to explain his fears to Mokuba when it apparently had been all in his mind.

"Good. I'm sorry I left you alone for so long."

"Don't apologize, big brother, it wasn't your fault. Besides, I know you were trying real hard to wake up," Mokuba claimed with a small grin. He reached over to the bedside table and snatched up the clear plastic ice cup, except this time there was water in it. "Here, you can have a bit. Don't gulp it, though."

"Yes, Doctor Mokuba," Seto said, smirking at the other's enthusiasm as he took a few small sips of the lukewarm water while Mokuba held the cup. When he was finished, he turned his head to observe Jounouchi, who was in the same position as last night. It was even worse to see him in full light – he was extremely pale and the ventilator plastic tube that entered his trachea was nauseating to look at. Seto placed his hand around Jounouchi's wrist again, feeling for his pulse. It was the only indication that Jounouchi hadn't yet given up completely – that there was still hope.

Eyes on the unconscious blond, Seto asked Mokuba, "How could you be so certain that I was fighting to wake up?"

"You spoke out loud sometimes. Not often, but when you did, it seemed like you could hear me as well. And there was one time when both of you together nearly woke up, but… but Jounouchi was screaming, even Yugi couldn't calm him down, and you were crying and apologizing for something. It was horrible and neither of you seemed to realize you were conscious and… and then you guys left again."

They were falling. Jounouchi, the fool, was under him and smiling as though he thought Seto should be glad for the chance to live at the cost of the other's life. The ground was rushing nearer and nearer, and then…

The air was cold – so cold that it burned his skin and every breath felt like a million glass shards piercing his lungs. It was freezing and there was far too much noise. People shouting, all together, in a strange language. He shouted back, demanding and then pleading for them to be silent, to give him a moment of peace in which to gather his wits.

"Big brother! Seto! Can you hear me?"

Everything else faded to the background and Seto spun around, searching desperately for the source of the young voice. But it was too bright – he was surrounded by a white light that blinded him and he could make out nothing.

"Moku—" he started to call back before he remembered. It couldn't be his little brother. Hadn't he already learned his lesson? Back in Kaiba Corp where he had been forced to watch as Mokuba was… was…

"Big brother! I'm here, big brother! I'm here!"

Seto shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyelids. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I couldn't protect you! I couldn't… I couldn't…"

And then Jounouchi's voice keened at him through the light-filled emptiness around him. It somehow brought a bit of peace with it, soothing the shame-filled ache in Seto's soul. He at once felt an intense need to feel the warmth that seemed to radiate from the other duelist.

"Jounouchi."

"Kaiba, help, don't leave me here. It hurts, the noise and the fire, and it's too dark and I can't—"

"I know. It's all right."

"No, no it's not. I don't want to be here. Let's go back, now."

"I agree. We cannot remain here. It's too cold."

"Seto? Did you hear me? What's the matter?"

Seto blinked away the afterimage of the memory, feeling like an idiot. "That was you. I had thought it was a… another hallucination. If I had known that was really your voice, I wouldn't have left."

"I know," Mokuba said, always forgiving when it came to the older brother he looked up to. "It must have been scary for you… both of you. You were with Jounouchi, right?"

"Yes. It was… just us."

The teenager nodded and then leaned over Seto to smooth the covers over Jounouchi's chest and brush an errant bang from his forehead. "He must be so lonely now. And frightened. Poor Jou."

It wasn't until Mokuba said it out loud that it struck Seto that Jounouchi was truly by himself in the strange place where their unconscious minds had taken them. A place where bad things happened to the people they loved and they were helpless to stop it. Only by sticking together were they able to ward off the visions, but now Seto was here and Jounouchi had nobody to protect him.

"It's my fault."

"What?" Mokuba stared at his brother in confusion. "What do you mean? You couldn't have stopped this from happening. The earthquake…"

"No, I mean it is my fault that Jounouchi is still in the coma. It's because I hesitated. If I had gone to him straight away, if I hadn't stood there like an idiot debating what to do, I could have saved him from walking into the darkness." He involuntarily shivered and slid his grip from Jounouchi's wrist to his hand, lacing their fingers together with the vague idea that somehow Jounouchi would be able to feel it and know that he had some support. Jounouchi had risked his own life to save Seto from the falling debris in the earthquake, and multiple times in their linked dream when Seto had been trapped in his hallucination about Mokuba, when they had fallen from the top of Kaiba Corp tower, and when the deafening Echo had been about to overwhelm them; but when it had been Seto's turn to save Jounouchi…

I fucking let him walk straight into Death's trap.

"Then… then let's do our best to help him now!"

"What?" Seto tore his gaze away from Jounouchi's impassive face.

Mokuba was wearing a familiar determined expression – his eyebrows lowered and his lips pressed together. "He's not dead yet, big brother. There's still hope, right? Maybe we can help him find his way back to us."

Help him find his way. "How? I don't believe I can go back to where he is."

"You don't have to. You said you could hear my voice, right? If we can get him to hear us and let him know that we are here and that he's not alone…"

"Then he may gain enough strength for the way out to open for him as well," Seto finished, his mind racing with new ideas and possibilities. His brother was right, hope wasn't lost yet.

"Mokuba, find Yugi and whoever it is that's with him. I have a feeling Jounouchi is going to need all of our voices to bring him back."

To Be Continued...

(A/N) The awesome reviews from last chapter encouraged me to get this out quickly ;-D Kaiba's POV again to help explain things, but don't worry, Jounouchi's POV will be back next! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this chapter! I hope it all made sense.