Many thanks for the comments!
See chapter one for disclaimer.
Chapter Ten
(In which some people might be less brilliant then they think.)
The discomfort was what woke him up. His neck was craned in an awkward angle, his back was twisted as he was half lying half sitting up, one of his legs was hanging down over the edge of the couch, and there was a dead weight all over his other leg and up to his chest.
He blinked his eyes open sleepily, closed them again when they were met with sunlight, bright even though it was filtered by the room's thin curtains. He twisted around a bit; the chin on his chest was pressed closer against his body, and a hand ghosted up his arm, the one that wasn't trapped under his own body. Malik stayed still, and, ignoring his arching neck, raised his head so he could look down at the fluffy white head that was pushed against him; the hand closed at his shoulder.
"Hey," he said. "Which one are you, anyway?"
Something was telling him the spirit rather than the host, the boldness, maybe, because whoever it was, they were clearly not asleep: the arm that belonged to the hand now holding his shoulder was laying in a way that looked like it could not be intuitive, or thought up in a state of sleepiness.
The one who moved when Malik shook him gently and looked up was definitely Ryou; however, Malik decided, he had the familiar, confused, just-pushed-into-control expression on his face, even if it could also be that he was simply returned from mundane sleep and not possession.
"What...?" Ryou asked.
Malik let his head fall back against the arm of the couch, and watched as Ryou pushed himself up, seemed a bit panicked for a moment, then gracelessly rolled off him and onto the floor.
"No it wasn't," he muttered, even as he stood up.
"What wasn't?" Malik asked.
"It's him," Ryou explained, pointing at his chest, where the millennium ring must be hidden beneath his shirt, and stiffened a yawn. "I'm... going to take a shower."
Malik nodded, and lunged for the table by the couch, where he'd put his millennium rod, and held it close to his face. Calls to work, he mustn't forget about that, and some food to buy...
"I'm sorry for ruining your holidays," he told the rod just as Ryou reached the door; Ryou turned back round to look at him curiously. "I didn't really mean to drag anyone else into this, and I wasn't thinking..."
He trailed off and bit his lips; of all the things to apologise for; as if he hadn't dragged Pegasus into it a well, and all the other people they'd ran into only briefly; as if he didn't owe Ryou apologies for far worse things; and he had known, of course, or would have, if he'd given it any thought, it wasn't like Ryou's existence was news to him. But he'd dreamt about Rishid and Ishizu tonight, not nightmares, just pleasant dreams about family live, and he realised he was robbing Ryou of small, simple things.
"I probably couldn't have spent them doing what I want anyway," Ryou answered after a moment, and walked closer. "This way I'm not alone at least..."
He glanced down at Malik, who looked back, and for a moment they were only looking in each others eyes, certain than the next moment, there would be something there that would make everything easy...
Malik sat up.
"Alone?" he inquired.
Ryou didn't seem to see what he found strange about that, and just nodded, before leaving the room. Malik fell back onto the couch.
"A couple in Touhoku," Yuugi explained what he'd already told the other five people present in Kaiba's office, this time to Isis and Rishid on the phone. "They called this morning; they've lost account of three days, they think they must have been drugged, and they found that note in one of their books..."
"No, I don't want to get the police involved," Kaiba snapped impatiently from his desk, where he was on another line with Mrs. Kagawa; Mokuba, standing next to him, muttered something. "It might endanger the hostage – yes, I do know what I am doing. Now if you could get me a photograph or a scan of the message sent – this is very important – good."
He put the phone down almost at the same time Yuugi ended his conversation.
"They'll send a photograph," he told the others.
Anzu was sitting cross-legged on the chair across of Kaiba; Yuugi had sat down by the wall, on the floor, and now stood up to hand Anzu her mobile back; Jounouchi was nervously pacing the room, itching to touch or comment on Kaiba's decoration; most of it was simple, elegant black, but there was a suspicious amount of light blue all over, and an expensive looking figure of a familiar dragon on the desk; Honda was watching him, possible for exactly that reason.
Mokuba reached over his brother to turn the computer screen in front of him into his direction.
"You do realise," Kaiba added, "that I have better things to do?"
"Don't start," Anzu immediately told Jounouchi, who clapped his mouth shut without a word. "This might be our best way to find them."
"By showing up in one of Pegasus' estates? And not before ten days? It's clearly a trap."
He was looking at Yuugi, as if he hoped the other duellist must share this view of things.
"They sent it!" Mokuba interrupted before Yuugi could answer, and immediately went to print the document; the phone rang almost in the same moment.
"Yes, we received it," Kaiba said in clipped tones, and turned the screen back towards himself and stared at it. "Yes. I'm sure it will. Thank you very much for your help, Mrs. Kagawa." There was a longer pause. "Of course, Yuugi Motou will inform you."
"Inform her of what?" asked Jounouchi suspiciously when Kaiba hung up.
"They want to know what happened to Pegasus, if we find him," Kaiba told Yuugi, apparently of the opinion that Yuugi would be the one to take care of that.
"It is Pegasus then?" Yuugi – the other now – asked; they all closed around the desk.
"It's his handwriting, I'm sure of that," Kaiba said in an odd voice, and handed over the printed copy for inspection.
"Maybe they controlled him," Honda said, while Yuugi, after looking at it, passed the note to Anzu. "Made him write it."
"Or maybe Pegasus isn't a hostage at all," Mokuba chimed in hotly.
The other Kaiba crossed his arms and nodded.
"We have no reason to believe he isn't in league with them, or even behind it."
"So what," Jounouchi barged in. "You're just going to cross your arms and do nothing? Stop pretending you're helping to do anyone a favour, you want to know why they've stolen grandpa's card!"
"I never said I didn't," Kaiba said coldly, without deigning to look at Jounouchi.
"He says not before ten days in this," the other Yuugi said, crumpling the note in his hand. "If we don't come up with anything else by then, we don't have a choice."
"There," said Bakura, throwing the door open dramatically. "We get a suite. Good enough for you, Ishtar?"
"Considering I'm the one who got it for us, I don't see what you're acting so superior about," Malik said, while casually walking past Bakura and into the room.
He dextrously span the rod in one hand as he went through their place: two rooms and a large bathroom, one double bed, TV, a fridge, internet in the room, if you brought the computer; rich looking furniture, not that Malik was anything close to an expert, and carpets. It wasn't that luxurious; without a doubt, Pegasus' place was going to be better.
"It's showy."
"We got the flights with this." He held up the rod. "I don't see why we shouldn't keep using it. You're just bitter because your item isn't as cool."
"Maybe I just want to let you do the work," Bakura threw back after locking the door behind himself.
Malik snorted in contempt at that weak excuse and, after tucking the rod away, drew back the curtains with a flourish; they were on the twelfth floor, and he couldn't make out much of the animated street beneath.
The last days had, in his opinion, been ridiculously fun; they'd gotten themselves a flight under false names to the USA through well applied mind-control – and a disguised Pegasus –, which had been difficult and all the more rewarding for it when they succeeded, and Pegasus was close to having finished. The only drawback was that he hadn't gotten to see Ryou very much during that time. But Bakura too had been surprisingly fun, in a creepy, I'm-glad-he's-on-my-side way.
"Don't get attached, we're not staying long," Bakura said from right behind him when Malik continued to stare out of the window.
"I know," Malik brushed him off, and closed the curtains again.
Bakura had chosen a place where he wanted to hold his ritual, and the unpleasant feeling somewhere in the pit of Malik's stomach – and which could be guilt, or fear, or maybe just doubt – occasionally crystallised into very concrete thoughts: he felt no true remorse for his part of the plan, but whatever Bakura was after, it could only be something dangerous; dangerous at the least for the pharaoh whom he couldn't stop hating, but whom he knew he owed...
"Having doubts again?" the thief murmured, having come very close once again without Malik noticing.
Malik stiffened in an effort to repress the sudden shiver that ran through him at that, and whirled round.
"No," he snapped. Bakura stepped back and gave him a doubtful look. "And if I do, isn't it in your interest not to encourage it?" he added, nastily, and went to close a hand around the millennium rod.
He didn't mean it, he realised even as he spoke, neither the menace, nor the pretence of feeling threatened. When they'd first met they had been dead serious; though Malik certainly would have been perfectly happy for the two of them to go on in their separate ways, what kind of an idiot steps in front of an oncoming motorbike anyway? But now – it was difficult to continue to think of someone as throughout evil when you spent almost twenty-four hours a day in their company doing relatively mundane things, in-between the dark magic, which the spirit didn't use any more than he did. And Ryou's presence, even when hidden, the fact that his friendly face might break through anytime, that didn't help either.
He'd been content with the fact that being around Bakura had something freeing; he hadn't yet entertained the notion that maybe he actually liked the spirit quite a bit. Total asshole that he was.
"I'm not encouraging them," the spirit answered softly; his eyes were riveted on the hand that held the millennium rod; Malik wondered if the spirit did take this confrontation for real. He certainly wasn't looking like he wasn't enjoining himself, in that slightly maniac way of his...
"Your host said you missed me," he answered.
Bakura's gaze went back to his face in a flash, and Malik had the satisfaction of seeing him look utterly surprised for a brief moment. So he didn't keep track of everything his host said?
"He's projecting," Bakura then said, relaxing his stance, and with a casual shrug.
Malik leant back against the windowsill, letting go of the rod for now, and narrowed his eyes.
"What, he missed me?" He'd been getting along with Ryou this time, but there was nothing in their previous encounter that Ryou could have missed.
The look Bakura was directing at him in answer was a bit strange; neither calculating nor mocking, nor malicious – interested. His tone, on the other hand, was nothing but bored, maybe a little condescending, when he replied:
"No. He misses things he's gotten used to."
"He misses you, you mean," Malik decoded, a little annoyed; he didn't find this to be a very convincing explanation; his presence could hardly feel to Bakura the way the spirit's must be to Ryou, and he trusted Ryou to be logical enough to know that.
Bakura shrugged, and changed the subject:
"Is it asking for too much to expect you to stay put for a while?"
Malik grinned at him, rather pleased with the irritated look that appeared on the thief's face in response.
"I'm going out. Shopping." He freed and spun the rod for emphasis. "Are you actually any good at stealing?"
Malik waited, poised, as Bakura narrowed his eyes in response; it looked like he was going to take the bait.
(end of chapter 10)
Thank you for reading! The next update might take a little longer, because it's only partly written now, and I might not have much time. I'm sorry about that.
And I hope that them getting past airport security happening off-screen wasn't a bad move. And that Kaiba & Co. part made some sense.
I love reviews!