"So, you see, Zen, it's beneficial for you to take over the day to day operations." Ryou finished easily, working a bit of supernatural persuasion into his voice.

"It… Does appear that way, my Lord." Zen agreed somewhat shakily. He knew when he was being 'persuaded'. It merely meant his choices were extremely limited. He swallowed. "I will take over as soon as you wish, my Lord."

"As soon as possible, Zen. Of course I will still be the one truly in charge and major decisions will have to be brought to me, but you'll be the field leader! Isn't that exciting?"

"Yes, my Lord." A 'no' would be disastrous.

"Lovely." Ryou smiled brightly. "I'll be in Valhalla if you need me. Just give me a call if anything requires my immediate attention!" He turned away, waving, "Ta-ta!"

"Goodbye, sir."

He was left standing in the Thieves' Den alone with a knot growing in his stomach.

"You know what to do, Spectre." Malik waved a hand. "I'll be in Valhalla."

"But, my Lord, are you sure you wish for me to take over?" The other blinked owlishly at him. "I am hardly the leader that you are!"

"But you know what you're doing." He frowned. "You'll manage. Feel free to call me if you do happen to need any help."

"Y-yes, my Lord." The other nodded. "Of course."

"And don't be so nervous. You have to show authority or they'll never listen to you."

He straightened his back. "Yes, sir!" He tried to appear confident and authoritative. "I will do my best, sir!"

"Good. Do not fail me." He gave a smile. "Although I'm quite sure you won't. That's why you're my second-in-command, Spectre. You're reliable. You get the job done… You won't let my Ghouls fall into disrepair, will you?"

"Of course not, sir. It would be a disgrace."

"Yes… It would."

There was a threat, there. One that Malik didn't have to voice for Spectre to understand.

Yugi tapped his foot. "Yes. Until Bruiser finishes his mission, you're in charge." He clarified.

"But, your Majesty, I'm hardly qualified-"

"You're just as qualified as Bruiser. Perhaps moreso." He cut the other off. "And I will still be the leader - you're merely here to act in my stead."

"Why must I do so, my Pharaoh, if you don't mind my asking?" He bowed his head.

"Because I need to clear my mind and refocus on our goals. There is too much in my head at the moment. I will be in Valhalla if you need me. You may call or send a grunt for my aid." He looked him over for a moment. "And do not fail me, Cimarron."

"I will do my best, my Lord."

"Let's hope that your best is good enough, yes?"

"Yes, sir."

"Great." Yugi smiled and stood. "You'll be taking over Bruiser's office for the time being. Get yourself situated."

He received a nod in response before the shorter man retreated from the room.

That thought made him laugh - there was actually someone out there shorter than he was. True, he'd had a growth spurt once he'd graduated high school, but the fact remained that he was still considerably shorter than Ryou and Malik were. Considerably. They each had at least three inches on him, now, when once he and Ryou had been nearly the same height. Maybe a half-inch or so off from each other.

That had been… How many years prior? Eight? Nine? He wasn't sure.

He was still considering it when he entered Valhalla to find Ryou lounging on top of Malik instead of his cushion. He blinked, raised his eyebrows at them, and decided it was probably best not to question it.

"Ah, hello, Yugi." Ryou said pleasantly, head resting quite comfortably on Malik's chest. "Nice of you to join us."

"Indeed." Malik muttered. "Can you get him off of me? He's refused to move since he got here even though I need to piss."

"You can hold it. I'm comfortable."

"You overestimate my bladder control."

"You underestimate my stubbornness."

"Well unless he wants to come sit in my lap on my throne you're kind of fucked." Yugi shrugged.

Ryou rose, then, grinning, and Yugi realized that he wasn't quite as short as he'd thought he was. He could look Ryou directly in the eyes, nose to nose. If he was wearing the shoes he'd worn all the time in high school, the slightly heeled boots he'd loved, he'd be taller than the white-haired man. Distracted, he was pushed backwards into his throne and straddled while Malik jumped off of his chaise and disappeared into one of the other rooms.

"Mm… You're just as cozy as he is." Ryou sighed contentedly, laying his head on Yugi's shoulder.

"What's with you and laying on people today? You have a perfectly good pillow pile over there." Yugi wrapped his arms around the skinnier man and shifted, getting comfortable. "And a throne of your own. And we could easily get you a chaise."

"I'm just in a cuddly mood, okay?" He shrugged, sticking his tongue out at him. "And I didn't feel like telling Malik that I wanted to cuddle. He probably would have said no, anyway, so I still would have ended up forcing my way into his lap."

"Well you could have just told me." Yugi rolled his eyes. "I can handle cuddling you."

"Hooray." He chuckled softly.

Malik returned a few moments later, flopping back down onto his chaise. "Enjoying being straddled like he's about to ride you, Pharaoh?"

"I guess." Yugi shrugged. "Has Ryou gotten around to telling you about what happened yesterday, by the way?"

"No, I don't think he has." Malik raised his brow. "What happened?"

"Atem called me." After allowing Malik a second to pick his jaw up off the floor, Yugi continued, "Asking for help on a missing person's case. Apparently Noa Kaiba is still alive."

Why was it so satisfying to see Malik shell-shocked like that? Yugi would be damned if he knew. He supposed it probably had something to do with the rather volatile case of schadenfreude that he'd been nursing for the past three years. That seemed like the most likely reason.

"So… The little boy that supposedly died at the age of five, prompting his father to adopt the douchiest little piece of shit in all of Domino, is still alive?" Malik eventually said carefully, considering each word. "Sounds fake, but okay. What idiot decided to put a Bounty Hunter on the case?"

"Mokuba Kaiba."

There went his jaw again. "Why would he even care enough to open up that particular can of worms?"

Yugi shrugged. "It's hard to tell. Maybe he's just curious about his adoptive brother? Wants to know if he's actually okay or not? From what I know he dug up some papers that gave him some rather vague information that implied that Noa could still be alive to this day."

"And he decided to get Atem Sennen on the case?"

Another shrug. "Atem always gets his man."

"That's true, I suppose." Malik admitted. "How come he never got you, then?"

"Dunno. Maybe he just wasn't interested in me like that." Yugi wanted to shrug again, but he hated repetitive actions. Instead he settled for an ambiguous hand motion that was rather limited because of Ryou's presence on his lap. "Anyway, I got Ryou to lend him Viper for the time being."

"Mm, good idea." The Egyptian said, "Viper's a great tracker. But why not send Fire or Gorbasch?"

"They're busy tracking down some of my Thieves with Reaper." Ryou yawned, "My first recon team went missing."

Both of them grimaced in reply.

"Bad luck." Malik said.

"Very bad luck." Yugi agreed. "Back to the subject at hand?"

"The subject of Atem getting your ass?" Malik snickered.

Yugi rolled his eyes. "He never got my ass. He wasn't interested. But, I did end up asking him if he wanted to hang out sometime since he's suddenly talking to me again."

"What'd he say?" Ryou looked up, intrigued.

He frowned. "He told me to ask him again after he finds Noa."

Ryou snickered. Malik gave a rather dark sounding chuckle. Yugi scowled in reply.

"You're awfully antsy to see him." Ryou poked him in the ribs, pursing his lips against his shoulder and letting out a puff of air in an attempt to tickle him and get him to laugh. "For someone who said that if he was going to be a douchebag you never wanted to see him again either."

Yugi swatted at his hand and bit his lip to avoid smiling. "It's been three years. We both know that I can't stay salty for three years, especially since he called me first." After a long moment of the other two snickering some more, he added, "And he apologized."

They stopped laughing rather abruptly.

"He what?" Ryou stared up at him as if the word "apologize" was unfamiliar to him.

"That's what I'm wondering." Malik managed after a brief pause to collect himself.

"He apologized for being an asshole." Yugi found himself smiling a bit. "So yeah. I can't wait to see him, okay?"

Ryou considered it. "Yeah, I can understand that now." He said, finally. "If he's gonna be acting the way he did before Yami and the others fucked off, he'd be nice to have around. Think you could get him to help us?"

"Maybe."

"Get him with some eye for an eye sorta shit." Malik suggested. "You and Ryou help him find Noa, he can damn well help you guys find the ones you're looking for."

Yugi cracked a smirk before a thought occurred to him. "Have we tried sending Fire and Gorbasch to look for Yami and the others?"

"No, but I doubt they'd find them." Ryou pressed his lips together. "Even I haven't found them yet and I'm better than both of them combined."

"Good point."

Their conversation wandered, from there, and as none of them were really expecting Yugi's phone to go off, it scared them out of their wits. One really wouldn't think that "Hey Jude" could scare anyone, but it certainly managed this one, lonesome time, and even then only for about five seconds.

"That's Atem." Yugi grinned. He fished his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open - he really needed to buy a new one… "Hello?"

"Hey, Yugi. I've got some good news."

"What is it?" He sat up a little straighter, putting his phone on speaker for the sake of not holding it up to his ear.

"Viper and I have… Made some progress." They could hear Viper murmuring in the background, along with the sound of rushing wind and cars going past. "We're already getting pretty close to- oh for fuck's sake, will you fucking drive?!"

Viper snickered. Yugi and Ryou had to bite their lips to prevent themselves from laughing, while Malik snorted, and then chortled. Ryou's lips wobbled while he attempted valiantly to contain himself. Yugi prepared himself to ask Atem to finish his sentence, but was cut off before he even opened his mouth all the way by a long string of curses and more laughter from Viper and Malik.

He took a deep breath, steadying himself, and patiently waited.

"Pretty close to…?" Yugi prompted when Atem finally stopped cursing at whoever was driving in front of him.

"Shit. Sorry." Atem sighed, "Pretty close to someone who might know where Noa is."

"Wait, seriously? Who?"

"Somebody named Pegasus."

"Pegasus…" Yugi scrunched his brows together. "Maximillion Pegasus?"

"That'd be him."

Yugi had to join Malik's chortles that time. "You're on the trail of two rich guys, one of whom is the only person in Japan with more money than Seto Kaiba! And the other? Oh, just his adoptive father's real son." He snorted, "This case could turn out to be pretty embarrassing for that asshole. Let's just hope he doesn't find out that I was involved or my not-so-hostile takeover of his company might have to turn hostile."

"I'll make sure he only knows that I got a tracker from the Bandits to help me." Atem chuckled. "Then he'll just be mad at the Bandit King."

Yugi got the strangest feeling that Atem didn't actually realize who the Bandit King was. Oh, it was gonna be fun when he figured it out. The Pharaoh could just imagine the look on Atem's face when he found out that Ryou Bakura, the shy little sneak-assassin, was the leader of a ruthless band of Thieves. He'd be so shell-shocked and it would be well-worth three years of silence to be able to see his jaw on the floor.

"I don't see why we should let him be mad at him. All he did was let you have one of his Bandits. He could very well have not even known what you wanted the tracker for." Yugi snickered. "But we both know that he knew full well what he was getting himself and his tracker into. I'm almost surprised that he didn't send himself to your aid just to watch your jaw hit the ground when you figured out who he was."

Ryou cursed under his breath. "I could have done that!" He mouthed, clearly displeased with himself. "It could have been marvelous!"

"Is he really that vindictive?"

"Oh yeah. Well… He can be, at least. He's currently feeling rather cuddly, apparently."

"What makes you say that?"

"The fact that he's curled up in my lap hugging me." Yugi stuck his tongue out at Ryou when he made a disgruntled noise. "And now he's pouting because I told you that deep down he's secretly a cuddlebug."

All he received was a snort in response before Atem began to yell at the driver in front of him again. This outburst, like the last one, lasted for a few minutes and provided ample entertainment to all who could hear him. It seemed much more entertaining to Malik than to the others, perhaps because Atem continually switched to Arabic and Malik was the only other one present to who could speak it fluently.

It sounded beautiful, really. More like an ancient, fictional language than a real, modern one. Yugi could remember times when Yami had soothed him to sleep in that language right alongside times when Atem had yelled at him from anger or fear of what he was getting himself into. Ever since he was in middle school, that language had been woven into every aspect of his life… Until recently.

What a shame, really, that he didn't hear much of it anymore.

He didn't speak it, himself, so there was no way to fill the void without having to request that Malik speak to him in his native tongue… And that would be utterly humiliating. Completely out of the question for that exact reason. He wouldn't stoop that low just to hear someone speak Arabic to him.

And now he didn't have to, so long as Atem stuck around. Atem naturally spoke in a strange (and occasionally incomprehensible) mixture of Arabic, English, and Japanese, and when asked would happily go right back to speaking his native language. He wouldn't even bat an eyelash at such a request.

"So, 'Tem." He leaned back, finally growing impatient enough to try and speak over the older man. "Do I really have to wait until you find Noa to be able to hang out with you?"

"Depends on how long it's going to take." Atem cut himself off from swearing to reply. How considerate. "If it's only going to take another couple of days, yes. Any longer than that and I might stop in for a visit on Friday."

Yugi couldn't help feeling giddy at that. A grin split his face and Ryou snickered into his shoulder. "Fair enough." He said, barely keeping the intense happiness out of his voice. "I expect to see you Friday either way, you know."

"I know." There was a hint of a smile in Atem's voice. "I missed you. And I'll call you back later. For now, I gotta go. We're getting close to Pegasus' mansion."

"Alright. Bye Temmy!"

"Goodbye, daw' qualil."

Yugi's face flushed. He knew what that meant - that had been the Sennen brothers' mutual nickname for him before Yami had disappeared. "Little light", it meant. Hardly a fitting nickname anymore, but… It still made him feel all warm and fuzzy. It was a term of endearment, after all. That was more than enough for him.

He smiled.