Bows of Promise

Chapter Five

"I'm glad both of you seem to be getting along nicely."

Yami hummed, a look of utter concentration on his face as his right hand quickly and smoothly cut into the patient's skin, the scalpel gliding easily through the tissues to make the initial step to establish an upper midline incision.

"Last time you hated each other's guts."

His wrist flicked with practiced ease, once, taking the whole length of the patient's midline, from the xiphoid process to a little above the umbilicus, cutting the skin with the first stroke, and repeating the smooth gliding motion to split open the fascia, linea alba and transversalis fascia and finally reaching the extrapertioneal fat and the peritoneum. "Yeah, we're fine now," he answered as an afterthought, picking up the peritoneum to make sure there wasn't any intestinal adhesions.

"We didn't hate each other," Seto was objecting…

"Can we just focus here please?" Yami requested, ready to open the peritoneum to access the abdominal cavity. Before cutting through that last layer, he glanced up quickly at Jonouchi and Seto and the nurse, nodding slightly.

They nodded back at him and he went ahead, exposing the abdominal cavity. Immediately, the nurse was suctioning the massive amounts of blood that spilled from the incision out of the abdomen, while Jonouchi inserted laparotomy pads in each of the four quadrants of the abdomen. Seto, meanwhile, was handing Yami the electrocautery cable so he could incise the avascular peritoneal attachments of the spleen they were going to remove.

The chatter between them paused, allowing Yami to concentrate as he sought out the splenic bundle and the spleen's hilum. With practiced ease, he identified the artery and vein and he asked for an artery forceps and a 0, non-absorbable silk thread.

"Just ligate any of them, there's no time to look for the vein," Seto told him, reaching for what he asked for anyway.

Yami calmly took the artery forceps from him, muttering, "I am not looking for it. I found it."

He grinned slightly behind his mask, when he heard Seto swearing and was vaguely aware of the nurse and Jonouchi gushing over his excellent knowledge of anatomy. He noticed, though, that Honda was trying to peer over their shoulders at what was happening, clearly not understanding what the fuss was all about.

"Honda," he called, stepping back just a little bit so he could clear an area for the junior resident to see through.

"Yes, sensei?" eagerly, Honda was standing at his shoulder, careful not to touch him or his sterile gown.

"Stand there so you can see how and where exactly we carry out the ligation," Yami requested, quickly and efficiently looping the silk thread around the artery. "It's done as close to the spleen as possible, because if you wander farther away, you may injure the tail of the pancreas and then we would have to insert drains and delay the patient's healing."

"Alright, sensei," Honda said and Yami could feel him nodding. "Why do we have to ligate the artery before the vein?" he asked, curious.

"You don't have to. If you can identify the artery quickly, then ligate it first. Because, theoretically, you conserve more splenic blood if you ligate the artery before the vein," he explained calmly, hands working smoothly around Seto's and Jonouchi's. "But if you can't identify which is which, just ligate any one of them, especially in traumatic cases like this one, because the amount of blood you're going to save is considerably insignificant compared to the time you will lose trying to save it."

"Alright, sensei," Honda repeated, breathlessly agreeing with so much awe in his voice, it bordered on hero-worship.

Yami almost rolled his eyes at the honorific and tone of voice, but chose to continue ligating the vein after finishing the artery. There was silence while he worked, but a much more relaxed one, after the source of the bleeding for the patient was recognized. She was a road traffic accident victim who came in with severe hypotension and abdominal tenderness and a very obvious Cullen Sign, the blue around the umbilicus so obvious, it was Honda who pointed it out before either of them arrived for the consultation in the ER.

"That was impressive, though, Yami," Seto remarked, after Yami was done.

"Thank you," Yami politely replied, searching for the gastric vessels carefully.

Jonouchi laughed, hazel eyes gleaming under the protective goggles they were wearing. "You both are being so polite. What happened? Last time I saw you, you were ready to rip each other's head off."

Yami didn't reply. Seto, however, wasn't so mature about it.

"We had dinner."

Yami's head snapped up so he could glare daggers at Seto across the table. "We did not have dinner," he snapped irritably. His brows knit together in annoyance at the playful blue eyes that stared back at him.

"Well, it was a date, anyway," Seto replied, a pleased expression on his handsome features.

Yami shook his head, removing the spleen and placing it in the kidney dish the nurse held for him. "You're delusional. And it wasn't a date." He checked the subphrenic area and the gastric vessels to make sure that hemostasis was achieved. "You were so desperate, you had to resort to stalking me all the way to the coffee shop," he added, figuring that since Seto was playing so dirty and being immature, he was allowed to do so as well.

"So was it a date or was it not a date?" Jonouchi asked, eagerly looking between them, clearly enjoying this way too much, to Yami's annoyance.

"It wasn't!"

"It was…"

Yami shook his head once more, raising an eyebrow in annoyance as they started removing the packs one by one to search for other sources of bleeding. It was obvious that it had been the lacerated, mangled spleen and that nothing else was causing the hypotension.

"We had coffee and brownies," Seto was still talking. Yami studiously ignored what was going on and what was being said, counting the packs carefully with the nurse and then counting the towels and reporting them to the anesthesiologist who stood beside the IV stand, hanging another bag of blood up and attaching it to the patient's IV line.

"Coffee and brownies are hardly dinner, Kaiba," Jonouchi was replying.

"We dined and wined… it sounds like dinner to me," Seto said, quite pleased with how annoying he was being. Yami was still painstakingly ignoring him.

"You're a big idiot," Jonouchi laughed at Seto's obvious teasing.

Yami continued ignoring both of them, asking the nurse for the monofilament polypropylene. "Can we just focus on getting this abdomen closed?" he grumbled at both of them, irritation clear in his eyes. Seto smiled and approximated the edges of the linea alba so he could start placing his sutures.

"Spoilsport…"

"Yes, thank you, Dr. Kaiba for your much valued opinion of me," Yami snapped, not taking his eyes off the wound as he placed continuous sutures in the sheath, pulling tightly and snugly, making sure that no points of weakness were left in it. "Just keep holding the incision lines close so we can be done with my grump."

He ignored the juvenile way with which Jonouchi and Seto both dissolved into childish giggles.

"The sexual tension between both of you is unbelievable," Jonouchi helpfully provided and Yami paused, shooting him a glare that could have made lesser men cower. But it was obvious that the blond had defective survival instincts and he laughed even more at Yami's heated stare.

"There is only one way to relieve it," Seto dramatically sighed.

"You do realize that what you are doing borders on sexual harassment, don't you?" Yami remarked in bored tones, holding the edges of the thread up for Seto to cut.

"Now both of you sound normal again," Jonouchi said, stepping back from the operating table, taking off his disposable gown.

"You pressed his uptight button, Jou," Seto remarked. Yami could feel his gaze on him from the other side of the table and continued ignoring him. "Now he's not talking to me, see what you've done!"

"It's not that I am not talking to you," Yami remarked, loading the vicryl thread onto the needle holder. "I choose to be the adult here and not take part in this ridiculous chatter."

"Are you really going to do a subcut suture?" Seto asked with a roll of his eyes.

"Do you have a problem with leaving the patient with the least ugly scar we can manage?" Yami asked.

"You could use a stapler."

"I could. But I am using sutures and as my assistant, I expect you to respect that," he muttered, continuing his work, trying very, very hard not to punch the stupid, silly smile off the brunet's pretty face. If only to respect the divine powers that created such perfection, nothing else. "It's very difficult to work while justifying every step of it, Dr. Kaiba. Please stop being a complete ass and let me do my job. If you've gone tired, I can ask Honda to scrub up and continue assisting me."

"I'm not tired," Seto heatedly defended.

"Why else are you complaining about my method of closure, then?"

"Because I think it's pointless," Seto snapped. "There is little to no evidence that the subcut leaves a less prominent scar than a stapler."

"Too bad," Yami replied, glad he pissed off the annoying little shit so much. "Next time, you do it your way. Otherwise, I am the surgeon here and I believe a subcut is the ideal closure method."

His hands were working efficiently as he waited for a comeback. To his surprise, there wasn't any. It was apparent that the brunet was going to shut up for now. It was such a relief and he visibly relaxed, grateful for the break from the quarrelling.

"Finally, Kaiba, I've lived to see the day someone shut you up," Jonouchi whistled from where he was writing down post-op care instructions.

Yami was about to roll his eyes because, for sure, Seto wouldn't just let this go and would take it as an opportunity to retaliate and make this go on and on forever.

He was grateful when Honda breathlessly whispered from behind him, cutting off whatever the brunet was going to rant about to answer Jonouchi's teasing, "Sensei, you're so good at this!"

Silence hung heavy in the room and Yami paused slightly, peering over his shoulder. "Thank you, Honda."

"These are so neat, yet you're too quick. You've already placed eight stitches in when it's been less than three minutes since you started. How did you do that? How do I become quick at it like you?" the excitement was palpable in his voice and Yami chuckled slightly.

"Honda, I've probably done more laparotomies than most people you know," Yami explained.

"Cocky."

Yami didn't stop himself from rolling his eyes this time at Seto's sarcastic comment. He continued talking as if he didn't hear the comment, "Third world countries don't have the luxury of laparoscopes at their disposal. We don't have exploratory laparoscopes. All explorations are done via laparotomies. Add to it that diagnostic imaging was too expensive and not always available, so you just had to open the abdomen blindly to get to the cause of an internal bleed. Imagine the number of cases I had to work every week during my residency alone. I've had practice."

"So badass."

Yami kept silent, determined not to stoop low and deign a reply to what was obviously the childish way Seto dealt with losing an argument. He was adding the finishing touches to his stitches, working quicker than ever to try and cut short the time he spent in the same room as Seto because he was just unbearable right now.

Fortunately, that was the end of it and no more silly comments were made and he was free to take off the gown and do his part of the boring paperwork that followed each surgery and seemed to follow him all around the world. When he was done, he waited until Honda followed him and left the operating room to head for the emergency room.

It was halfway through their shift. It just so happened that all three of them were gathered in the hospital today. Seto and Yami were on call for twelve hours and Jonouchi was the senior on call with them. It had been a relatively unexciting shift for the first four hours, then this patient arrived and an emergency open laparotomy was decided upon.

It was one week after their little sit-down in the coffee shop by the sea. They had continued working as if it never happened and Yami was eternally grateful for that. It had been a difficult week, where sleep was concerned, since the workload wasn't severe enough to knock him unconscious before his head hit the pillow, so he spent hours over thinking and reprimanding himself for having too big of a mouth and unwinding far too much for it to be acceptable around the brunet. It annoyed him to no end that Seto wasn't acting like Yami expected him to. To press and push and generally make him regret saying anything. It was a conflicting feeling that irritated him too much. Part of him was grateful for the lack of awkwardness that could ruin the easy familiarity that seemed to settle between them. Yet another part was puzzling over how maturely Seto was dealing with the information he had.

He didn't know what to think. On his first day in Japan and he was told clearly that his partner on his thesis was going to try to worm his way into his bed and that he should be careful. There was no doubt that Seto was living up to the warning, but what Yami did not expect was finding it so difficult to resist his advances like this.

Seto Kaiba was very pleasing to the eye, he had gotten that established also since day one. But where he expected him to be a childish spoilt brat who always got what he wanted then threw it away after using it, he gave off the vibes that he wasn't as foolish or immature as he thought he would be. Yami did not know what exactly was going to happen if he stopped resisting the undeniable charm his colleague seemed to emanate all around him. It could be all just the brunet's way of luring his victims and discarding them once he was done.

He did not like the conspiracy theory his mind was pulling. In his opinion, it was all very self-indulgent and he did not think anyone would go to such measures to just lure him into their bed. It just seemed like too much effort and that it was more likely that this was how Seto was usually. Cunning and quite devilish but trustworthy.

He had decided that he was just going to maintain the status quo, being friends with the brunet without getting swept into imagining scenarios that weren't going to happen. He decided that Seto was just this flirty to everyone else. Besides, he literally had everyone wrapped around his little finger; there is no way he could be going to such measures to try and get someone plain and unexciting like him to bed. He only had one job to do and that was preventing himself from getting too attached to the brunet.

For the moment, though, he did not find it very difficult to shun any advances from Seto's part. Today, he was being extra annoying and perhaps it had something to do with one of the senior-most staff member's decision that Yami would be working that splenectomy and not him.

He did not know what was going on, but it seemed to him that Seto and Pegasus Crawford did not get along well.

It was understandable; the older man was not very likable, Yami had decided the moment he met him. His eyes, although a warm hazel color were quite unsettling and the ridiculously long, smooth white tresses of his hair did not help soften his cold appearance one bit. It did not help at all that he spoke in a very creepy, dragging manner that put Yami on edge.

It reminded him of one of his professors of biochemistry in third year who had the annoying habit during oral examinations. He would sit, asking questions in the same dragging, annoying sentences, that suggested that there was some grand plot behind the question and whatever answer he had would never be correct.

He didn't know if that was why Seto was so annoyed with Pegasus or if there was a more profound reason and he did not think directly asking would provide an answer that satisfied his curiosity.

He let the matter go when he reached the cafeteria next to the emergency room. He bought himself a bottle of apple juice and a packet of salted crackers. He stood in front of the chocolates stand, battling the craving for something sweet, then remembered that he was short and couldn't afford gaining weight at all. He sighed as he stood paying for his little snack, wondering why his parents never bothered trying to encourage him to exercise as much as they nagged him about academics.

He was still mourning his slow metabolism and the way it was ruining his life at the moment when he found Honda and Ryuji huddled together, their body language screaming unease. He stood watching them, munching his way through the first biscuit, as Honda spoke quickly under his breath, obviously vehemently trying to persuade Ryuji about something, but the green-eyed young man refused to listen, his eyes cold and his mouth set in anger.

It was only when Ryuji quietly replied to Honda's zealous tirade with a single statement, shaking his head and meeting the brunet's dark eyes with a determined look, that he realized he was most probably intruding on a private moment. Reprimanding himself, he turned his attention to the bottle of juice, opening it and taking a sip.

Moments later, he found Seto standing beside him, taking the packet of crackers from him.

"Hey!" he protested.

"You're ruining your diet, Motou!" Seto said calmly, eating one of the crackers with certainty. "I'm just helping you out."

"It's just a couple of salt crackers," Yami reached for the packet only to have him raise his arm, moving it out of his reach. Clearly, the brunet had gotten his head out of the gutter, gotten over the I-am-the-one-operating card he pulled on him and was willing to speak like an adult now. He didn't say anything about it, however.

"I can give you one… only if you promise to exercise," Seto evilly told him. Yami stood back, narrowing his eyes. "My pool is at your service any time." Yami raised an eyebrow, tilting his head sideways just a little. Seto's evil little grin widened to an excited beam, eyes glinting as he added, "I hope you have a swimsuit. In my humble opinion, swim briefs would suit you perfectly."

"Keep the crackers, Kaiba, I lost my appetite," Yami dryly told him, sipping on the apple juice and focusing his attention on his junior resident and the ER resident as their mysterious argument continued even now. It was better than paying attention to the brunet beside him, lest he socked him in the face or something.

"I think a dark blue color would go perfectly with that tan…"

It was obvious he had given this much thought.

"I can't swim," he tried ending the topic with that blunt dead-end. He also tried not to think of the implications of Seto going that far into his imagination as to imagine a suitable color for a swimsuit.

It seemed Seto was adamant, though, continuing his opinionated rant with enthusiasm that Yami had to commend him for. "Forget trunks and full-body suits. We don't need that kind of negativity in our lives."

Yami couldn't help dissolving into peals of gentle laughter, shaking his head, still staring at his bottle of juice. The residual smile that lingered on his features remained as he thought of the last time someone actually made him laugh genuinely, in a context outside work and without using references from a shared favorite movie or TV series. It was sad that it had been just too long, he realized. He also realized that the brunet was silent. He looked up at him, about to ask him if something was wrong, only to find the blue eyes staring at him, an expression of open appreciation making them gleam brighter than usual. The smile froze on his own lips and he looked away, hoping that his reddening ears weren't too obvious.

"Your ears go red when you're embarrassed."

Apparently, Seto was not oblivious and wasn't going to let the matter go. Yami didn't answer him, knowing that whatever he said, it would sound totally stupid and cause the flush that was thankfully limited mostly to areas beneath clothing for now, to spread farther.

"How much does it spread, down there?" Seto asked curiously. Before Yami could wonder just what kind of super powers the brunet had to read his mind in such a manner, a slender hand was rising to hold onto the collar of Yami's scrubs' top pulling it gently so its owner could feign peering down his clothes.

The pads of Seto's thumb and index finger inevitably touched the bare skin on his neck. An electrifying shiver ran down Yami's spine and he stepped away as if stung. All the hairs on his body were standing on end. To his mortification, he felt his cheeks burning as he heatedly said, "Stop it! Just what do you think you're doing?"

"I'm taking a look down your clothes," Seto simply replied, standing back and staring down at him innocently.

Yami seethed.

"Because that is perfectly normal, of course! You complete ass!"

To his annoyance, it came out too much of a screech and Seto just started laughing at him.

In his attempt to calm down, while taking a few steps away from the brunet, he stomped towards Honda and Ryuji, who paused whatever they had been doing and glanced up at him. He was aware that his cheeks were burning. He was sure now that it was because he was angry but to others who may have witnessed his exchange with Seto, it might seem it was out of embarrassment, so he made sure to place his most terrifying scowl on his face as he walked away from the brunet who was heading for the cafeteria after successfully managing to piss him off. It was unbelievable how he went from laughing to being livid in a span of less than two minutes.

"Sensei…" Honda softly mumbled as he approached. Yami glared at him silently, not trusting himself to say a single word now. "Are you alright?" he nodded mutely, grabbing the nearest patient file to religiously start reading it, ignoring everything going on around him for the moment while trying to calm himself.

He was aware of the whispers Honda and Ryuji exchanged and he felt almost regretful for interrupting them, but decided there was nothing for it now. Ryuji walked away to the observation rooms and Honda hovered awkwardly beside him for a few seconds.

Yami sighed.

"I'm sorry I interrupted you both," he said, taking slow, measured breaths.

"Wha…no, no, it's alright, really," Honda stammered out. Yami felt impossibly worse. The kid looked horrible, now that he had a closer look. Whatever argument was going on seemed to have been important.

"You and Ryuji alright?" he asked tentatively, his voice dropping to a whisper so that the nearby nurse did not hear him. Honda blinked and looked up at him, face reddening slightly. "It's none of my business," he placated, raising a hand. "But I just hope everything works out well."

The blush died down on Honda's face, the embarrassment replaced with a miserable expression. "I hope that as well."

Yami turned his attention back to the patient file. It was a case of perforated peptic ulcer that had already had an upper endoscope done for. He absentmindedly noted the young age of the patient, his too low body mass index. The case was a classic. It added relatively nothing to him. But it soothed the rage he had been unable to control.

Just as he was about to close the file and get up, commotion started up suddenly in the general direction of the emergency room's entrance. He blinked and stood to get a clearer view. He saw the familiar lights of the ambulance flashing from outside. Ryuji was standing beside the gurney on which the patient was strapped on and Yami could clearly see the collar around his neck and the rigid board he was attached to.

Making the connection immediately, he jogged towards the commotion consisting of gathered nurses establishing IV accesses, drawing blood and starting fluids and inserting a urinary catheter. Ryuji and his senior staff member were standing next to the gurney as well. He almost reached the gathering when he found Seto falling into step beside him.

"Trauma patient?" the brunet asked unnecessarily, and Yami nodded.

They reached the gurney as Ryuji was almost through with assessing the patient's breathing. Yami stayed back out of his way as he rattled off the findings of his primary survey to his senior resident, who arrived in time with them.

"Airway patent, breathing rapid, 27 per minute. Chest expansion is normal and breath depth and sounds also normal. Pulse is 120, thready and uneven but equal on both sides and comparable to central pulsations. Blood pressure is 80/60 with signs of shock and delayed capillary refill time. I obtained samples and started him on fluids. GCS 10, blood sugar is 109. Exposure shows Cullen sign but no other visible injuries or bruising."

"Get one of the trauma surgeons here," the senior ER resident was saying.

Seto pushed his way next to the patient, "We're here already."

Yami was placing a hand on the patient's wrist, while his other hand was already raising the shirt he was wearing so they could look at his abdomen. Quickly, he scanned the abdomen, noting the absolute stillness of it. There was very, very obvious rigidity and guarding. For the moment, however, he turned his attention to the pulse beneath his fingertips.

Something wasn't right.

It was thready, alright… and it was uneven and irregular, just as Ryuji described. But there was still a pattern to it. A regular irregularity that he only just noticed. He reached over to hold the patient's other wrist, comparing the pulsations to each other. Yes… there was a pattern and he squeezed his brain to try and make a connection. The pulse was weak beneath his fingertips for a few beats. Then got considerably weaker for a much longer while.

"What's going on?" Seto asked from where he was gently palpating the patient's stomach.

"Something is wrong with the pulse…" Yami quietly murmured. "Can you hand me a stethoscope?" Ryuji gave him his stethoscope. He placed it in his ears and the diaphragm on the patient's chest and grabbed his wrist again. And immediately, it clicked. "Pulsus paradoxus. The pulse volume is decreasing whenever he takes in air."

Seto paused. There was a distant expression in his blue eyes for a few seconds, then he turned to Ryuji to tell him, "We'll take the patient from here and do the necessary." Then he turned to Yami. "Let's take him to the sonography and I'll ask Rebecca to take a look at his chest too."

Yami nodded.

Within fifteen minutes, they both stood with Rebecca Hopkins, the radiology specialist on duty today. Her blue eyes were narrowed in utter concentration behind the half-framed glasses she was wearing and she was pointing at the screen of the ultrasound, "There's free fluid in the abdomen, Yami… I'd say about 500 to 750 ml. There is a Grade 3 laceration to the liver and I don't like the look of his spleen, either."

"We figured as much," Seto thoughtfully remarked. "I think another laparotomy will be decided. But Rebecca, could you please take a look at the chest cavity?"

The young blonde looked up at him questioningly, "I thought his chest was free on examination?"

"Yami detected pulsus paradoxus. And he needs to get an x-ray before we can remove the rigid collar so we can't check his neck veins."

"What are you thinking of?" Yami asked, raising an eyebrow.

Seto raised a hand to thoughtfully rub his chin, "Significant blunt trauma to the abdomen, after falling from height. Only the abdomen showing signs of internal bleeding but there is shock and pulsus paradoxus. If we can get access to his neck, we will find his neck veins congested."

Yami blinked once…and slowly, recognition spread on his features. "Beck's triad!" he exclaimed. "You think he has cardiac tamponade?!"

Seto nodded, eyes fixed on the screen of the ultrasound. "I hope I am wrong. But if I am not, I can aspirate the fluid in the OR before the laparotomy and leave him to the cardiothoracic surgeons to repair the actual damage."

"Then I suggest start scrubbing up, Kaiba. You're right," Rebecca told them, pointing at the screen. "Fixed IVC, right chambers collapsing and there's variations in inspiratory inflow. It's tamponade, alright. The fluid is preventing the heart from contracting properly and sending him into shock."

Seto was already raising his phone to his ear, waiting for a few seconds until the other end was picked up. "Jonouchi, we have a trauma patient. Came in 15 minutes ago. 30 year old male, fall from third floor and collided with dumpster. Most of the trauma was to the abdomen. Pulse was 120 now 130, blood pressure 80/60 and dropping. Yami found pulsus paradoxus and there is marked rigidity, Cullen sign and ultrasonography shows half a liter collection. But I asked Rebecca to take a look at his chest and she found tamponade. Do we prep for surgery?"

Yami was placing his stethoscope on the patient's chest, listening carefully to the heart sounds. They sounded distant and oddly muffled, further proving that there was fluid collecting around the heart. He glanced at his watch, knowing that time was off essence in this case.

Seto was talking again, "I will carry out the pericardiocentesis in the OR under ultrasound guidance, I've done it many times before. We just need a go ahead from the higher ups." His lips were pursing as he said that last part.

Yami made a note to himself to make sure he was present while this took place because it was a skill he did not have and it made him stare in awe at Seto for having it.

"Call me again while I contact Rafael so they could prep the OR. And Jou…" there was a tiny pause in which Seto smirked ever-so-slightly at Yami. "This laparotomy is mine."

Yami grinned softly as the brunet hung up. "You can use your precious stapler all you want, Dear."

Seto opened his mouth in mock surprise, his long fingers splayed on his chest, "I am your dear? Thanks, Baby!"

Yami shook his head.

Rebecca was rolling her eyes, "Stop flirting, Kaiba."

"None of your business, midget!"

"Be careful, Yami… this guy slept with half of Domino already," she calmly said, wiping down the patient's skin from the gel she had placed on it to use the probe.

Yami chuckled and was about to inform her he had been thoroughly warned when Seto protested, "I would like to know who started that rumor about me! Is it you, Hopkins?"

Yami studied the exchange silently.

"It's not a rumor if it's true, Kaiba," she said with a tight little smile, eyes narrowing teasingly behind the half-frameless glasses.

"It isn't true," Seto defended. Yami watched in silence as he propped a hand on the edge of the ultrasound's table and leaned down to invade her personal space. He had to applaud the blonde woman in his mind for her lack of reaction to the sudden closeness. All she did was look up at Seto with a raised eyebrow as he asked, playfully nudging her side-swept bangs slightly, "Have you ever been to my bed, Hopkins?"

"I can't say I have, Dr. Kaiba," she said, expression unchanging, obviously unfazed.

"See? I haven't slept with everyone," Seto smirked, straightening and raising his phone once more.

While he called the anesthesiologist, Yami stayed completely still and silent. He was trying to clear his head, because this honestly wasn't the time to stress over Seto's flirting with the radiology specialist. And quite frankly, there was no logical reason behind the twitch of his hand at seeing Seto leaning so close to her. It just proved his point. Seto was this flirtatious with everyone. There was no reason to get worked up and think he was special or something for being targeted by the seductive brunet.

He forced himself to calm down and think of the surgery coming up.

Five minutes passed since Seto hung up with the anesthesiologist and his cell phone rang again.

"Yes, Jou, do we head for the OR?" he answered. Yami moved towards the door to call the nurse when Seto's one-sided conversation stopped him, a noticeable tone of anger interspersing the brunet's words as he asked, "…and why is that…? Wait let me ask him…" Yami raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Can you carry out a pericardiocentesis?"

Yami shook his head, "I've only observed it once and it was eight years ago."

Seto turned his attention back to the phone, "No, Jonouchi… I can do it, you know that!" the anger in his voice was rising bit by bit. Yami stayed silent, standing beside Rebecca who was also intently listening as Seto snapped, "Jou, Jou… shut up for a second… yes? Yes… now why the hell would it be okay if Yami did it but not if I do it? No! No, answer me…" there was another pause in which Yami raised an eyebrow in shock and disbelief. "It's Pegasus, isn't it? He's behind this…?"

"The patient will die," Yami exclaimed angrily, taking a step closer to Seto. His heart was racing uncomfortably. If they didn't act within thirty minutes maximum, then this patient would most probably, as he predicted, would die.

"Tell me one good reason why I am not to carry out the procedure, Jonouchi, and you know I do not usually cause you problems; I will calmly wait for a cardiothoracic surgeon to do it, watching the patient die but I will sue him if that happens…" there was a small pause. "No, no, listen to me. If Crawford doesn't have a good reason for delaying a life-saving procedure, then I will disobey him and do it regardless of the consequences. If he does have a legitimate reason, then and only then, will I stop but rest assured, if the patient passes into refractory shock, I will be testifying against him, Jonouchi."

There was another small pause, in which Yami moved towards the door once more, motioning for the orderly and the nurses to start moving the patient to the operating rooms.

When he returned, Seto was saying, "I will meet you in the OR, Jonouchi." And he hung up.

"What the hell is going on?" Yami asked.

"Pegasus told him that I am not to carry out the pericardiocentesis," Seto explained, tone snappish, betraying the anger that was burning clearly in his blue eyes.

"Why? You've done it before…"

"No reason. Just like he didn't want me on today's laparotomy," Seto venomously hissed. Yami blinked, not understanding what was going on. "He told Jonouchi to tell you to do it. If not then we are to wait for the cardiothoracic surgeon, but I am not to touch the patient where the tamponade is concerned…"

Yami's mind raced. Seto was going to the OR to do this procedure, against the command of one of the senior-most members of the surgery department's staff. If this was to happen, then Seto was going to be in serious trouble. Unless…

"Seto… wait!" he called, stopping in his tracks. The brunet paused, looking back at him and he smiled up at him. "There's another way…" Seto stared at him questioningly, so he added, "He did say it was alright for me to do it, right?"

"Yes, but you've only seen it done once before," Seto argued.

"This is a teaching hospital, Seto," Yami pointed out.

Realization dawned in the blue eyes.

"Teach me."

tbc…