Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Golden Dance ❯ 11: Here and Gone ( Chapter 11 )

The Golden Dance chapter 11

by Tsutsuji

 

Rating: R (nothing strong in this chapter, though)

Warnings: yaoi with a touch of angst. See previous chapters for other warnings.

Disclaimer: I do not own the copyright to these characters and I'm making no profit from this fic and intend no copyright infringement.

Spell-checked and self-beta'd. Please inform me of any errors I've missed.

 

Notes: thanks for the reviews, loyal fans! I haven't stopped working on this story, just really sloowwed doowwwnn. I especially want to thank jjinks, Eien no Ai, Itavita and all the rest of you for all the great reviews, carollipop whose recent review nudged me back into action, and the wonderful sglily for all the great Bakura/Ryou inspiration!

 

I give up on chapter titles for the moment. Feel free to suggest something!

 

 

Summary: Ryou dreams someone else's dream, Jonouchi tries to think, and Thief Bakura gets a little better acquainted with modern technology.

 

---

Golden Dance chapter 11:

 

During the trip across town, Ryou kept wishing he had a camera. The familiar journey became an adventure with Bakura, who was as cool and as wary as a cat walking past a dog pound. He tried not to look startled or even impressed by the many sights that must have been strange to him, from motor scooters to skyscrapers made of glass, but he couldn't completely hide his curiosity about this busy, noisy world he'd landed in.

 

However, the main thing Ryou wanted to preserve was simply the sight of Bakura strolling along the streets of Domino, with his lean, muscular body clad in black leather coat and pants, and his sharp eyes taking in every sight. Ryou tried to imprint that fine view onto his mind to treasure forever. Unfortunately, with the way his mind kept fading in and out, he wasn't sure he was going to remember his own name by the time they got to Kaiba's.

 

It soon became obvious that he wasn't going to be able to walk all the way across town, either, although he could have done so easily under normal circumstances. Instead, he got to introduce Bakura to the joys of riding in a city bus. The thief looked a little doubtful when the lumbering beast opened its doors like great jaws ready to devour them, but once he sat down and the bus began to accelerate through the streets, he grinned like a kid, and just as eagerly watched the world go by outside the window.

 

For Ryou, the murmur of the other passengers' voices began to sound like the haggling of merchants and buyers in a crowded marketplace, and the rumble of the bus seemed to become the clatter of carts and footsteps echoing off low stone buildings. As the bus swayed and wove through traffic, Ryou felt himself jostled by a crowd who had somehow all become taller than him.

 

He looked up from the height of a child, hardly noticed by the adults in the marketplace as they went about their business. That was fine with him; it that much easier to grab a handful of dates here and a small loaf of bread there, and hide them in his tunic. He ducked into the shade behind the buildings on the edge of the village to feast on his stolen dinner, and stared out across the plain. Rippling in the heat under Ra's harsh light, many other small towns dotted the plain, clustered more thickly near the white walls of the city in the distance.

 

He was no longer a child but a young man, now, as he squinted at that city with a sense of anticipation. There was something there he wanted badly, although he also felt a shiver of dread run through him at the site of those walls. Seth was there, he knew - although he was not sure why he was so eager to see the young priest, whether it was to embrace him, protect him, or see him dead alongside the rest of his enemies.

 

The conflicted feelings split apart inside him, jarring him out of himself. Suddenly, he was Ryou again, standing in a strange place and watching as a tall figure in a red robe struck out across the plain, not toward the city but toward the shadowed ridge to the west.

 

He had to follow him. He couldn't let the thief disappear again.

 

"Wait, Bakura! Let me come with you!"

 

His voice seemed tiny in the vast distance of the plain. Bakura must not have heard him because he kept walking, his long legs taking great strides across the sand. Ryou tried to run and catch up to him, but the sand sucked at his feet and slowed him down. He struggled on, although the thief began to disappear into the shadows that crept toward him from the west, creeping up from the tombs hidden in the canyons there.

 

"Wait! Don't leave me behind again!" Ryou tried to call, but it was a silent plea, as if the sand that sank under his feet also muffled his voice.

 

The red-robed man slowed, though, as if he'd heard. Slowly, he started to turn around, as the shadows swelled behind him. A sense of dread came over Ryou, a wave of fear that the face inside the hood might not be Bakura's at all, but some other, horrible thing - the face of a rotting corpse, or a red-eyed shadow....

 

The sand sank beneath him, sucking him down along with it into the earth. As the thief turned toward him, he caught a flash of white hair and a gleam from blue eyes, just before the sand closed over his head.

 

"Ryou? Pretty one?"

 

Ryou gasped, surprised to discover that he could still breathe after all. Something had jolted him, and now a pair of strong arms shook him gently. His eyes flew open to find Bakura's concerned face watching him. He blushed when he realized that he'd slid down nearly into the thief's lap, with one arm around his waist. Seeing that he was awake, the thief relaxed and smiled.

 

"Your dream seemed pleasant at first, so I did not want to wake you," he said softly. "But this conveyance has stopped. Does that mean we've reached our destination?"

 

Ryou tore his eyes away from the scarred face to glance out the window.

 

"Oh! Yes! We're nearly at Kaiba's home. We have to get off here."

 

Reluctantly, he pulled himself away from Bakura and stood up, but he almost sat down again just as quickly. Bakura put an arm around his waist and helped him maneuver out into the aisle of the bus. An old woman stared at them with a raised eyebrow and scowl., looking rather pointedly at the cozy way Bakura's hand rested on Ryou's hip. Red-faced, Ryou smiled back at her nervously. Unfortunately, Bakura had noticed her disapproving glare as well.

 

"Mind your eyes, stupid cow, or I'll pluck them out to make a necklace!" the thief muttered casually as he passed by her with Ryou leaning on his arm.

 

Ryou winced. It was a good thing Bakura could only speak in ancient Egyptian.

 

The bus had let them off at the end of a lane that wound around the perimeter of Kaiba's estate. They could just catch a glimpse of the mansion through the wrought iron fence and hedge. Ryou knew the main gate was just around the bend in the lane; he'd been past it plenty of times, but he'd never been through that gate before.

 

Of course it was too much to hope that it would be open, or that someone would be standing there waiting to let them in. The wrought iron gate set into a thick wall looked like the entrance to a fortress. Ryou hoped Yugi and the others were really here, because Kaiba wasn't likely to let them in on his own. For the first time, it occurred to him that he might have called first - but then he remembered that his phone was still disconnected back at his apartment.

 

"Are there no guards?" Bakura wondered as they approached. He grinned as he eyed the gate and wall. "Well, then, this will be easy enough!"

 

"No, wait," Ryou said, clutching at his arm. "We don't need to break in. I hope. You'll probably just get zapped if you try that, anyway."

 

"Zapped?" Bakura echoed the strange word curiously. "What is that?" But he stood back as Ryou walked up to the intercom set into the wall beside the gate.

 

Ryou still felt like he was only half awake. It took him a few seconds to figure out which button to push. Bakura jumped when a gruff, male voice came out of an unseen speaker.

 

"Yeah, kid? What do you punks want?"

 

"That's not a very nice way to greet visitors," Ryou said before he could stop himself. "Oh! I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me!"

 

He bowed toward the speaker, stumbling a little as he stood up straight again. "We're friends of Mr. Kaiba's. I believe my friend Yugi Motou is here also, and we need to see him, please!"

 

"What?" the speaker voice crackled. "What kind of joke are you two trying to pull?"

 

Ryou's heart sank. It sounded like Yugi wasn't here, after all. Of course, everyone knew Yugi and Kaiba weren't the best of friends, so just saying he was Yugi's friend was probably enough to get them locked out.

 

"We're not joking at all," he said earnestly. "Can you please let Mr. Kaiba know we're here, at least? It's rather important, actually." He tried to sound both polite and forceful, but it was difficult to be either one when he was swaying on his feet - either that, or the wall was moving side to side.

 

"Oh! I forgot," he added suddenly. "My name is Bakura and this - " he waved his arm vaguely toward the thief, "um, well, this is Bakura too!"

 

"Buddy, I can't understand a word you're saying!"

 

"You can't?" Ryou asked the speaker plaintively.

 

"I don't know what you've been drinking, kid, but you and your friend better just get lost, before we send the guards out there!"

 

Bakura stepped behind him and placed his arms on his shoulders to hold him steady.

 

"What is this creature saying to you?" he asked, eyeing the talking wall warily. "Is it going to let us inside?"

 

Ryou shook his head. "They don't seem to understand..." He looked up at Bakura, bewildered. Then it hit him: he'd been speaking in ancient Egyptian.

 

"Oh dear! I apologize!" He clapped his hand over his mouth. "No, wait, that was still Egyptian, wasn't it?"

 

He stared at the intercom helplessly. He didn't know why - maybe it had something to do with the comfortable weight of Bakura's hands on his shoulders - but he couldn't think of a single word in his own language. It was so ridiculous and he felt so lightheaded that he giggled before he could stop himself.

 

His knees buckled. He would have fallen if Bakura hadn't caught him under his arms and pulled him back against his chest. Ryou closed his eyes and sighed. It felt just as nice as it did back when Bakura first held him like this back at his apartment.

 

But they weren't at his apartment. They were standing outside the gate to Kaiba's mansion, although at the moment, he couldn't think why. Actually, nothing was making much sense at all just then. Ryou struggled to think through the haze that was closing down his mind. He remembered that he was supposed to be getting to Yugi, and to Seth, so he could help Kaiba, and so he could help the Spirit of the Ring.

 

That thought brought on a sharp twinge of concern. He wondered why the Spirit wasn't able to keep him strong any more - something must be very wrong. They needed help fast!

 

"He is still protecting you," Bakura said softly.

 

Ryou realized that he must have wondered out loud without meaning to. Bakura's hand shifted to just barely touch the Ring through his shirt. "He is afraid even his magic will harm you. That's why he sent us here to find your friends."

 

Ryou blinked in surprise. The idea that the spirit was worried about him made him feel even more giddy than before.

 

Bakura helped him over to where he could lean against the fence, then he stepped back and looked up at the gate and fence with a professional gleam in his eye.

 

"If the gate won't open for us, we'll have to find our own way inside," he said with a grin.

 

"I still don't think that's a good idea," Ryou said. But he couldn't explain why, because he still couldn't think in his own language, and there weren't any words in ancient Egyptian for security device, camera, or electrified fence.

 

---

 

Jonouchi lost track of the time he'd been there, half curled up on the bed with his arms around Kaiba, just watching him sleep. He had mixed feelings about the serene look on Kaiba's face. It brought out the fine, male beauty that was usually frozen out by the coldness in those ice-blue eyes, and that made it even easier for Jou to admit to himself how he felt, because who could resist a face like that?

 

However, it also made him remember some of the thoughts he'd started having when he was with Seth, and all of his curiosity about what Kaiba really looked like and felt like. All that he'd done with Seth seemed like another one of his weird dreams now, though, compared to the absolute reality of that one little kiss from Kaiba.

 

When Kaiba shifted a little, weak but restless in the bed, Jonouchi's body started tingle with reawakened curiosity. He had to pull back a before things began to get awkward.

 

He sat back on very edge of the bed, but when he tried to draw his arms from around Kaiba's shoulders, a clammy hand grabbed at his with what strength it had in sleep. Jonouchi held Seto's hand in his lap and looked down at it. How often those hands had caught his eye, usually in the motion of drawing a deadly card or making some other forceful gesture. Beautiful, expressive hands, he thought. But now Kaiba's hand was just lying there in his, with barely enough strength to curl his fingers around Jonouchi's.

 

It wasn't right. Jonouchi knew from experience that Kaiba had a grip like a vice. As attractive as his face looked in peaceful sleep, that wasn't right either. Those blue eyes should be open and flashing, and those dark lashes shouldn't look so stark against such pale cheeks.

 

"So, what are we supposed to do to make things right again?" Jonouchi asked himself impatiently. If there was one thing he hated, it was feeling helpless like this, sitting there and doing nothing while someone he cared about was in trouble. "We came here to figure out some way to help, so start using those brains Kaiba thinks you don't have, Katsuya, and figure something out!"

 

Holding Kaiba's hand in both of his, he sat back and dragged his gaze away from the sleeping face. He tried to clear his mind of the effect Kaiba was having on him so he could sort through all that had happened, from the moment the two ancient duelists appeared until now.

 

"So," he said to himself, "a couple of guys from 3000 years ago show up here out of nowhere, and they're trying to kill each other, or it looks like it anyway, because of this other guy who died back in the past under mysterious circumstances, who happens to look like me, of all people. And then the two people who look like them in the present started getting sick right after they showed up. And somehow, all three of us can speak their language, but they can't speak ours, and no one else around us has gotten instant Egyptian language lessons, either.

 

"What else? Bakura has the Ring which he got from the dead guy, but he didn't use it when they were dueling and he doesn't seem all that happy to have it, unlike our own Bakura. And Seth has the Rod 'cause he's some kind of high priest of the Pharaoh. And there's someone who looks like Yugi in the past they came from, but it's not the same guy as the Other Yugi so he's not the Pharaoh there, but the Pharoah that is there has the Millennium Eye instead, and there's other Millennium Items but no Puzzle where they come from. And maybe Bakura didn't kill Jumoke like Seth or that other Pharaoh guy with the Eye thinks he did, but somebody must have done it! And maybe Bakura didn't really plan to kill Seth when they were dueling, but he sure looked like he was ready to sic that great big overgrown snake...."

 

He broke off abruptly as he remembered the sight, sound and smell of the great serpent-like beast Bakura had controlled during the duel.

 

"Wait a second. Those were real monsters, not holograms, and they must have come from the past with Seth and Bakura, so where'd they go? And how'd they get here in the first place?"

 

There was something else about the monsters that seemed to be tugging at his mind, like the answer to a math problem that stayed just out of reach of his brain when the teacher called on him in school. Something he should remember about Ancient Egypt or Duel Monsters, or was it something somebody said?

 

"Maybe I should get another look at that fancy golden duel disc of Seth's, come to think of it," he mused out loud. "Man, I bet Kaiba would love to get his hands on one of those and find out what makes it work!"

 

Thinking of Kaiba derailed his thoughts again for a few seconds, as he stared at sleeping face, at the slightly parted lips that had just touched his. Wincing, he dragged his gaze away and tried to think, and to remember whatever it was that was escaping him. Millennium Items, Duel Monsters, and...?

 

A soft knock at the door shattered his thoughts and almost made him fall off the edge of the bed - almost, but not quite, because he was still sitting there holding Kaiba's hand in his lap like a lovesick schoolgirl when Yugi and Mokuba stuck their heads in the room a second later.

 

"Jonouchi? Is everything okay?" Yugi asked, his brows knotted with concern. "You've been in here for a long time!"

 

"Uh, yeah, everything's fine!" he said. "Well, I mean, you know - not any worse, anyway."

 

Mokuba's eyes darted from his brother's face to the machines in alarm. Jonouchi realized he was far more worried about Kaiba's closed eyes and limp hands than about the fact that Jonouchi was holding onto him.

 

"He's just asleep again," Jonouchi said quickly, standing up. "I didn't want to leave in case he wakes up and needs something, you know?"

 

He tried to give Kaiba his hands back, but limp fingers hooked around his and wouldn't let go. He laughed nervously; his face was so hot he knew he must be red as a beet, but Mokuba didn't seem concerned. He walked over to stand next to Jonouchi and stare down at his brother. Yugi followed him in, looking from Kaiba to Jonouchi with a questioning expression.

 

"Did you get to talk to him, at least?" Yugi asked.

 

"Well, yeah, we talked a little, before he fell asleep. Nothing important, much, just, you know, how's it going, stuff like that!" Jonouchi was still trying to discreetly pull his hand away, without success.

 

Mokuba sighed. His shoulders drooped, and he turned to Jonouchi with a smile of relief.

 

"Seto's really sleeping this time," he said. "Not like the other times when he seemed like he was trying to fight his way out of it, or like he was having bad dreams. Thanks, Jonouchi! I knew you could help him."

 

"Uh," Jonouchi said. "Yeah?"

 

Mokuba nodded. "He didn't want to admit it when he was awake, but he's been wanting to see you for days. He's so stubborn!"

 

"They both are," Yugi said quietly, catching Mokuba's eye as he joined them at the bedside. It was Dark Yugi's voice and cryptic smile, Jonouchi realized.

 

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, but he and Mokuba only smiled and didn't answer.

 

Flustered, Jonouchi finally managed to put Kaiba's hand down to rest at his side on the bed. He stepped back quickly, rubbing the back of his neck and sweating puddles. Problem was, he didn't want to let go either. Kaiba shifted and sighed in his sleep - and smiled. Jonouchi's breath caught in his throat. What he really wanted to do was climb back onto the bed and put his arms around Kaiba again, but not with Kaiba's little brother and Dark Yugi standing there!

 

But curling up next to Kaiba in bed wouldn't help anything anyway, Jou reminded himself firmly. He was supposed to be figuring out what to do to help, not standing here drooling over the guy. Maybe Yugi could help him figure out what he'd been puzzling over a moment ago - if he could just remember what it was.

 

Before he could gather his thoughts again, something bleeped loudly. They all jumped and stared at the medical equipment, but nothing had changed on the screens. Suddenly Mokuba swore and whipped a cellphone out of his pocket.

 

"What is it?" he snapped in a loud whisper. "It better be important!"

 

"Yes, sir," the authoritative female voice in the phone said, just loud enough for Jonouchi to hear. "I'm sorry to bother you, but security has a problem I thought you'd want to know about. Two men nearly succeeded in breaking in at the front gate just now. Normally we'd turn them over to the local authorities, but since you said you don't want any publicity of any kind while Mr. Kaiba is ill..."

 

Mokuba cut her off. "Reporters?" he growled.

 

"We don't think so, sir," she said quickly. "They're just a couple of teenagers. One of them can hardly stand up on his own, and the other, the one who almost made it over the gate, he just keeps talking some sort of gibberish no one can understand."

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Jonouchi saw Yugi listening on intently. Glancing up at him over Mokuba's head, Yugi grinned, and suddenly Jou knew what he was thinking.

 

"No way!" Jonouchi said softly. "Not them!"

 

With a grim smile, Yugi nodded. "I'd bet on it," he said.

 

 

---

 

 

Since the Spirit of the Ring had entered his life, Ryou had almost gotten used to coming to in unexpected places, and usually didn't even want to know how he'd gotten there. This time, he thought, he really wished he knew what was going on.

 

One minute he'd been frantically but lightheadedly trying to talk Bakura down from his climb up the wall - and the next, he was sitting on the ground, looking up at the thief's gorgeous, leather-clad backside a few feet in front of his face. That would have been fine, but unfortunately they weren't alone.

 

He peered around Bakura's legs at the dozen or so of Kaiba's guards that were now between them and the gate. At least, he could only assume that they were Kaiba's guards from the "KC" logo on their uniforms. Bakura stood between him and them with his arms flung wide, and with a snarl that could be understood clearly in any language to mean "one step closer and you're dead!"

 

"Oh dear, what did I miss this time?" Ryou wondered aloud.

 

At least Bakura hadn't gotten himself electrified or shot yet, he thought gratefully. Maybe he'd fainted at the right time after all, if that's what got Bakura to stop climbing the wall before he got zapped, or maybe it was the arrival of the guards that had stopped him. The ancient Egyptian didn't know what electrified fences were, but he obviously recognized deadly weapons when he saw a dozen of them aimed in his direction. On the other hand, Ryou worried, they didn't know that he wasn't armed - or was he?

 

"If I had my diadiankh on my arm right now, I'd summon a creature that could devour the lot of you all at once!" he snapped at the guards.

 

Fortunately, Bakura had enough sense not to reach into his bag for the ancient duel disc, although his fingers twitched as he looked down at it. The guards seemed to recognize the threat in his unintelligible Egyptian words; a couple of them took a nervous step backward. The one right in front of Bakura narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his weapon.

 

"Stop!" a female voice said. A woman in the same KC uniform, but with a bigger, shinier KC logo on her chest, stepped out between the men who drew back at her command. Instead of holding a gun, she spoke quickly into some kind of device in her hand, while keeping a sharp eye on Bakura.

 

Hoping she was talking to someone inside who would let them in, Ryou started to push himself up to his feet. Bakura turned smoothly and pulled him up, and then drew him close in the circle of one strong arm. The thief tensed as the woman took a step toward them, holding the device in her hand out in front of her.

 

"Wait!" Ryou said urgently, fearing Bakura would lunge for her. Unless Kaiba had been inventing new kinds of weaponry, Ryou was pretty sure that the camera-phone in her hand wasn't deadly.

 

"Oh!" he said suddenly, as that sunk in. "Are we on camera? Maybe Kaiba can see us right now!"

 

"What are you talking about?" Bakura wondered, as he and the woman eyed each other warily.

 

Ryou's reaction to being on camera was automatic: he smiled and waved. And then he fainted again.

 

---

 

"There's one other thing, sir," Jonouchi heard the security woman say over the phone. "I was on duty during the Battle City tournament. I recognize these guys - or, one of them, anyway," she added uncertainly, "- from the closed-circuit feed we got from the finals before the system went down. If you'll just take a look, sir..."

 

With a scowl, Mokuba glanced at the camera-phone in his hand. He did a double-take and his jaw dropped. By that time, Jonouchi and Yugi were looking over his shoulder.

 

The image was small but sharp enough to see plainly. Jonouchi already knew who they were going to see, but what he didn't expect was to see tomb robber Bakura looking like a sexy fashion model in a long, black leather coat, with his arms around Ryou protectively.

 

Jonouchi studied Ryou's face in the tiny picture. His cheeks were nearly as white as his hair, his eyes were half closed. While they watched, he smiled and waved in his ridiculously friendly way - and then drooped like a rag doll. From what Jou could tell, it was only the thief's arms around him that kept him from crumbling to the ground.

 

"That's Bakura!" Mokuba gasped. "Then is this the other guy who came here with Seth?"

 

"It is," Dark Yugi said. "You'd better have your guards bring them in here to us."

 

Mokuba nodded slowly and spoke into the phone.

 

"They're okay, Rika. Bring them up here," he said. With a glance at Kaiba, he sighed wearily. "And it looks like we better have another hospital bed set up in here, too."

 

---

 

Ryou blinked in surprise; apparently smiling at the camera had been the right thing to do, he thought fuzzily, because instead of shooting at them, the guards were now escorting them through the gates and into Kaiba's mansion. That was a good thing, he told himself - but he hadn't really planned to be carried across the threshold in Bakura's arms like this! It was embarrassing, to say the least. Pleasant, but embarrassing.

 

He vaguely remembered hearing the woman give orders - which came from Master Mokuba, he thought she'd said - to bring them in. She'd also told the men to help the weak one along, but Bakura had countermanded that order with another one of his threatening growls, and then just scooped him up in his arms. Ryou had been too weak to protest at the moment, but when they stopped in the foyer, with Bakura and the guards eyeing each other uneasily, he started to tell Bakura that he could walk on his own now, please.

 

Bakura didn't seem to hear him. Ignoring the guards, the thief stared past Ryou with narrowed eyes and a grim smile.

 

Ryou twisted around in Bakura's arms and followed his gaze up the stairs at the far end of the foyer. It took him a couple of heartbeats to realize that it wasn't Seto Kaiba up there waiting to greet them. From the top of the stairs, Seth stared down at them with cold fire in his eyes.

 

 

---

 

(to be continued!)