Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ The Golden Dance ❯ 13: Split Decision ( Chapter 13 )

The Golden Dance

by Tsutsuji

Chapter 13: Split Decision

 

Date written: 10/14-28/06

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

Warnings: yaoi with a touch of angst, brief violence. 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 & grammar checked and self-beta'd. Please inform me of any errors I've missed.

 

Summary: Jonouchi's day gets a whole lot worse, Ryou gives Seth an earful. Has High Priest Seth finally had some sense knocked into his head?

 

---

Chapter 13: Split Decision

 

Sometimes I think he knows too much

His confidence never needs a crutch

One man is a real one, the other wants to hide

One man has his mind made up, the other can't decide

By the time there's nothing left to choose

One man puts the fire out, the other lights the fuse

- Split Decision, by Steve Winwood

---

 

"I swear, if those two keep trying to kill each other, I'm going to have to kill them myself!" Jonouchi growled.

 

He didn't have a shred of doubt that that's what all the noise was about. Through the wail of the alarm, he could hear Mokuba giving orders and a sharp command from Dark Yugi. There were other voices shouting as well, some of them coming in from outside through the open window behind Ryou's bed. The medical staff in Ryou's room hardly seemed to notice all the commotion, at least not until Ryou started to struggle out of bed.

 

"Whoa, where do you think you're going?" Jonouchi said, jumping in to help the nurse hold him back.

 

"What if he's hurt Bakura?" Ryou cried. "I have to know if he's all right..."

 

"I'll go check on Bakura and find out what's going on down there," Jonouchi said. "You just stay put!"

 

Ryou gave in reluctantly, not that he looked like he could have fought off even a single nurse, anyway. The medics were still bringing equipment into his room, so Jonouchi turned and headed out through Kaiba's side of the adjoining rooms.

 

Of course, Kaiba picked that moment to wake up. Jonouchi stopped in his tracks. He supposed it was a healthy sign, after all; if the alarms going off in Kaiba's own house didn't wake him up, they'd really have to worry. Even so, he felt a little twinge of disappointment, because all that time he'd been sitting there hoping Kaiba would wake up with that same look in his eyes that he had after they kissed, but instead he went from sound sleep to full-powered, blue-eyed glare in a second.

 

"What the hell is going on?" Kaiba demanded. He looked about ready to leap out of bed as well, and tried to, but he got as far as pushing up onto his elbows before he started to fall over. Jonouchi ran to his side and caught him, pushing him back onto the pillows.

 

"You stay put, too!" Jonouchi snapped. "I was just on my way to find out!"

 

Kaiba glared but didn't argue. Fists clenched, more frustrated than ever with the Egyptians, Jonouchi spun around and headed out, but he didn't need to go far after all. Just as he got to the door he heard quick footsteps in the corridor, and a second later, Seth appeared, with his head bowed and his face in his hands.

 

"Don't tell me you attacked Bakura again!" Jonouchi pleaded, although he figured he knew the answer already.

 

"Only with my words," Seth replied, his voice muffled by his hands.

 

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jonouchi asked impatiently.

 

Seth stopped in the doorway and raised his head - very carefully, and Jonouchi could see why. His face was a mess; his nose was bleeding and his lip was cut and swelling. To Jou's experienced eye, it looked like Bakura must have swung hard but wild, like he couldn't decide whether to break Seth's nose or knock out some teeth so his fist had landed somewhere in between.

 

"What have you done now, idiot?" Kaiba demanded, half growling and half wheezing. Jonouchi wasn't even sure which one of them he was calling an idiot, Seth or himself. "And what about that maniac Bakura? Don't tell me he's in my house!"

 

"He was," Seth replied solemnly. He stepped into the room, carefully holding his hand to his face; at least he had enough sense not to bleed on the carpet. "The thief Bakura came here to help, but after he lashed out at me, your guards came running into the room. To avoid capture, Bakura left by the window."

 

"Without opening it first, obviously," Jonouchi said. That explained the crash they'd heard a moment ago and the alarm which was starting to get on the few remaining nerves he had left.

 

"Is he all right?" Ryou sat up in his own bed and called through the doorway, over the protest of his nurses. "Where is he now?"

 

"What's he doing here?" Kaiba muttered in surprise, noticing Ryou for the first time.

 

"He's got the same problem you have, and for the same reason," Jonouchi snapped at him, then caught himself and switched to Seth instead. "Which is what we're all supposed to be here trying to figure out, remember?"

 

"Great," Kaiba muttered. "Not that I'm buying the idea that some ancient Egyptian thief came here to help anyone, but can't you two blasts from the past stop fighting and do something useful? I don't like having my home turned into a hospital ward - or a battle zone!"

 

He sounded almost like his old self, but he was sweating and shaking by the time he finished this little tirade. One of the medics left Ryou's room and bustled over to scold him. The bad thing was, by that time Kaiba didn't have the strength left to snarl at her, too.

 

Another one of Kaiba's medics showed up at the door just then, apparently on Mokuba's orders, because he immediately began to swab at Seth's bloodied face. After a startled moment, the priest simply ignored him and let him do his work. Jonouchi figured he must be used to having servants take care of little things like that for him.

 

"I don't think Bakura was hurt," Seth said. "He was able to elude the guards, at any rate. Moku-ba has sent them out to search for him."

 

"So, he's missing again!" Jonouchi cried, throwing up his hands.

 

"That's true," Seth agreed. He looked thoughtfully at Ryou. "I don't think he will run far away this time. However, Bakura can hide like no other when he doesn't wish to be found."

 

"I just bet he can!" Jonouchi said. "Well, Honda and Anzu can help search when they get here. They'll be thrilled! I suppose I should go help out too," he added, although he didn't want to let Kaiba out of his sight for that long.

 

"Do you think that's wise?" Kaiba asked darkly.

 

Seth shook his head. "I am the only one in danger from Bakura's anger. He will not blame Jonouchi, just as he did not blame Jumoke when he found us together."

 

Jonouchi nearly choked, and felt his face turn bright red. He suddenly had a bad feeling he knew what Bakura and Seth had been fighting about this time.

 

"Oh, crap," he groaned under his breath. "Tell me you didn't tell him about that!"

 

Seth sighed heavily and his shoulders drooped.

 

"You told him. Great!"

 

That was bad enough, but now he realized Kaiba was staring at Seth and at him with a very disturbing look on his face. Weak as he was and spacey as he'd been, it looked like his mind was as sharp as ever, and that was a little too sharp for Jonouchi's comfort at the moment.

 

Somebody somewhere finally killed the alarm. In the sudden quiet, the hum and bleep of Kaiba's medical equipment seemed loud to Jonouchi, but not nearly as loud as the pounding of his own heart.

 

"Blame Jonouchi for what?" Kaiba asked quietly.

 

Seth met his gaze for the first time since he'd entered the room. Blazing blue eyes narrowed.

 

Jonouchi wanted to jump in and clamp his hand over the priest's mouth before he said something someone was going to regret, but for one thing the medic was in the way, and for another, he had a sinking feeling Kaiba was about to guess what he meant, anyway.

 

"You must not hold him to blame, either, Seto-Kaiba," Seth said in a solemn voice. "In my longing for Jumoke, I went to Jonouchi; and although he did not resist me, I realized afterward that I had only taken advantage of his love for you. I am no better than a thief myself, for I have trespassed on the territory of your heart. In trying to relive a moment of my time with Jumoke, I took what should have been yours to claim."

 

Kaiba's ice-blue glare shifted from Seth to Jonouchi. Jou really wished he could sink right into the floor and disappear, but it was a little too late for that. He should have done that earlier, back when Seth came up behind him and touched his hair....

 

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Kaiba asked in a dangerously low voice.

 

Jonouchi opened his mouth, but he couldn't get anything to come out of it. Ryou gasped. Kaiba's face turned white.

 

One of the machines attached to Kaiba started to whine. His nurse tried to make him lie back and relax, but he pushed her aside and sat up, shaking so hard the bed rattled. She couldn't have understood a word they'd been saying, but that didn't stop her from pursing her lips and glaring at the two of them for upsetting her patient. Her little glare was nothing next to the fury in Kaiba's eyes.

 

Jonouchi winced. Those icy flames in Kaiba's eyes were aimed directly at him. Maybe Bakura wouldn't blame him for having sex with his old lover, but Kaiba was definitely having a problem with it. In a way, that was kind of a good thing, and part of Jou's mind squealed "he's jealous!" like a crazed schoolgirl - but the look on Kaiba's face made it a nightmare.

 

"Are you saying you slept with this - this ancient Egyptian mockery of - of me?" Kaiba rasped. "Here, in my house? After what you said to me?"

 

"Take it easy, Kaiba, it wasn't -" Jonouchi began desperately, but Kaiba cut him off with a snarl.

 

"Get out! All of you! Get -"

 

Jonouchi was ready to get right in his face and point out that it wasn't after he'd said what he said, it was before that, back when he thought there was never a chance on earth he'd hear Kaiba say what he'd said. But before he could move, Kaiba gave an odd little cry and looked at Jonouchi like he was in pain. Then his eyes rolled up and he flopped back onto the bed. Another machine started bleeping even more urgently than the first.

 

"Kaiba!" Jonouchi screamed.

 

He lunged toward the bed, but Seth's medic and Ryou's other nurse held him back. Yugi appeared from somewhere, and his hand joined theirs on Jonouchi's arm.

 

"We should do as he said and leave the room," Yugi insisted in his soft, normal voice. "I'm sure Kaiba's medical staff can help him, but we're not doing any good by being here!"

 

"You sure they can help him?" Jonouchi asked frantically. He turned to the nurse. "Can you?" he pleaded.

 

He knew he was freaking out, but he couldn't help it. The worst part of it was, this was all his fault. No, the worst part was that he couldn't do a damn thing about it now.

 

The medic left him and joined the nurse at Kaiba's side, and he heard them muttering to each other about blood pressure and oxygen count and other stuff that didn't sound good. But to his relief, one of the machines quieted down a second later, and the nurse nodded with satisfaction. Kaiba was still breathing, shallow, raspy breaths. His face was shiny with sweat and his eyes were closed, but his fists weren't so deathly white where they clutched the sheets.

 

"We'll take care of Mr. Kaiba," the nurse holding on to Jonouchi said calmly. "We'll have him stabilized again in a moment. You'll have to wait outside. We'll let you know as soon as he wakes up again, but you can't be in here disturbing him like this!"

 

She and Yugi managed to drag him out through the door. Jonouchi craned his neck to look back into the room. Unfortunately, instead of Kaiba, the last thing he saw before the nurse closed the door was Seth backing away into Ryou's side. Then he was back out in the corridor, staring at the same closed door he'd stared at what seemed like hours ago, when he was getting ready to go in and tell Kaiba that he was in love with him.

 

It was a good thing Priest Seth had taken himself out of reach, because right then Jonouchi wanted to land the punch Bakura had missed and knock out every one of his teeth.

 

---

 

Ryou blinked, trying to hold his swirling thoughts still, as he watched Seth back out of Kaiba's side of the room and into his. The door closed, cutting off their view of Kaiba's bed and the medical staff muttering together over their patient. Seth dropped his head into his hands and sighed.

 

"What have I done?" he groaned.

 

Ryou was trying to figure that out as well. It sounded like the priest had somehow convinced Jonouchi to have sex with him, which was hard enough to believe. But even if he did, that didn't explain why Seto Kaiba had been so upset about it, almost as if he was jealous of Seth over Jonouchi. That didn't make any sense at all - did it? Not like Bakura being jealous of Jumoke did, especially if Seth was still so madly in love with Jumoke that he confused him with Jonouchi.

 

It was all confusing, and nothing Ryou could think of explained why Jonouchi had consented to be with Seth - unless he had also confused one person with another....

 

"Oh!" Ryou said softly. In spite of all his worries, he smiled as several things little fell into place all at once, like the way Jou seemed to be keeping watch over Kaiba, and something Kaiba had said just before he passed out about something Jonouchi had said to him. "That's what he meant by 'stranger things have happened'! They must have gotten their act together."

 

Except that now, because of Seth, they'd fallen apart again. Ryou sighed, and stole a look at Seth who still stood facing the door to Kaiba's room with his hands over his face. Judging from the Priest's hunched shoulders, there was no need to point out that he'd made a rather large mess of things.

 

Ryou looked down and touched the Ring, letting its dangling points tumble over his fingers. He supposed Seth wanting to be with Jonouchi in place of Jumoke was not so different from his own desire to be with the thief Bakura in place of the Spirit of the Ring. Ryou's face flushed as he remembered what he'd done with the thief, or rather what they'd nearly done - it all seemed so vague and dreamlike now, he wasn't even sure which parts had really happened and which were only his own wishful longing for the spirit he could never touch. Just as Seth could never touch Jumoke again, he thought sadly.

 

He wasn't really sure why Bakura had shown so much interest in him, though, although he certainly did seem interested at the time. Even so, Ryou was more certain now that Seth was the only person Bakura really wanted to be with. Seth's cut lip and bloody nose just proved it, in a way. He just wasn't sure Seth realized that.

 

That was the most baffling part of it all, as far as Ryou was concerned. Even if Seth had loved Jumoke so much, he mused, and even if Jonouchi did look like Jumoke, how could Seth want to make love to a ghost when Bakura was right there, very much alive, too gorgeous for words, and obviously still in love with him?

 

Seth spun around and stared down at him with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide.

 

"Oh, dear," Ryou said. He blushed crimson and shrank back against the pillows. "Did I just say that out loud?"

 

Apparently he had, and in Ancient Egyptian, too. Living alone with only the Spirit of the Ring for company had given him a very bad habit of talking out loud to himself without realizing it. He was used to getting strange looks in grocery stores and at school, but Seth's stare made him nervous. He clutched the Ring defensively, remembering how the priest had nearly choked him to death with the cord earlier. After a moment, though, Seth's expression softened and he looked away.

 

"Why, indeed?" he said. "When you put it so clearly, the only answer I have is that I am a fool beyond imagining. Shame has made me blind, for my pride told me I should never have fallen in love with a thief such as Bakura in the first place. But it seems that my heart is beyond my control. I can't help but love two men, even if one is a thief and the other is lost to me forever."

 

He turned back to Ryou and managed a crooked smile with his swollen lip.

 

"Bakura's affection for you is quite obvious, as well," he said. "In fact, I should thank you, because jealousy of you has forced me to see what my pride kept hidden. Bakura was right - I have no right to be jealous when I have already shared my heart with someone else! But, perhaps, my greatest shame is that I never really loved Jumoke as deeply as he deserved, because I never stopped loving Bakura."

 

As much as he'd wanted Seth to admit it, Ryou felt a pang of regret when he heard him confess his feelings for the thief. He knew Bakura liked him as well, but not in the same way - not in the way he felt drawn to the Spirit of the Ring. He wished he could make the same kind of confession to the Spirit, but he quickly shoved that thought back into the secret corners of his mind. He might have had a glimpse of what it would be like to be with his own Thief Bakura, but he would never really know.

 

Seth touched his bruised face and winced.

 

"And yet," he continued with another sigh, "though I still love my wicked thief so much, I do all that I can to drive him away from me. He risked his life to follow me to the palace, but in my pride and fear, instead of welcoming him, I lectured him on the law and called him an evildoer. I knew I would earn Pharaoh's wrath if we were found together. I feared for him as well, but all he heard was my judgment. He said I have become no more than Pharaoh's parrot. I have no right to judge him as I have. In the past I secretly admired his skill, and at one time I had a wish to join him and live as he lived - but I never told him so. Before Pharaoh came and gave me a place at court, I thought I would be with Bakura forever. I never told him that, either."

 

"It's not too late to tell him," Ryou said softly. "In fact, I really think you should. He never stopped loving you either, you know."

 

Seth stared at him again, looking nearly as shocked as he had when Ryou had spoken out unintentionally. But this time, when he smiled after a moment, it was with more warmth than Ryou had ever seen on his face.

 

"You have a good heart, Ryou, and it sees much more clearly than mine. You are right! It is past time that I set my pride aside. I have offered my life to the service of Pharaoh Akunadin - although he values it little - and I have given part of my heart to Jumoke, but since the day we met, my body and soul have belonged to the Prince of Thieves. I swear to the gods, when Bakura is found this time, I will make sure he knows the truth of how I feel and how I have always felt for him!"

 

Fist clenched and eyes shining, Seth looked inspired and entirely serious, in spite of his banged up face. Ryou thought that if any gods were listening, they were bound to be impressed. Then Seth's shoulders slumped again, and his hand went back to his face with a grimace of pain.

 

"But first, Bakura must let himself be found," he sighed.

 

Ryou nodded vaguely. He was glad that Seth had finally made up his mind, but the priest and everything else around him had started to sway side to side, just like Kaiba's gate had been doing earlier. When he blinked to try to focus again, something caught the corner of his eye, like a shadow flickering somewhere in the room just out of sight. He tried to turn and look for it, but the glare from the window behind the bed made him dizzy. He fell back onto the pillows with a soft groan.

 

Seth seemed to be saying something to him, but he was fading into the distance and Ryou couldn't hear him. He suddenly wished the thief was there to hold onto him, just as he had been all the other times he'd fainted like this. Instead, he held the Ring against his chest with both hands, and sighed a little when he felt its familiar touch like a cold flame against his skin.

 

Hang on, I've got you! he thought he heard a Voice say in his mind, and then it seemed as if there were two strong arms holding him after all. Smiling, Ryou closed his eyes and drifted away to sleep.

 

---

 

"Man, you weren't kidding about the guards!" Honda exclaimed. "Who kicked the anthill around this place?"

 

"Do you have to ask?" Jonouchi said wearily.

 

He plopped his butt down on a chair in the bedroom he was supposed to be sharing with Yugi. Mokuba had brought Anzu and Honda up there as soon as they arrived, followed by a servant with a huge tray of food. That had been ten or fifteen minutes after the medics had shut him and Yugi out of Kaiba's room, and that door was still shut. The five of them had set up a vigil of sorts here, waiting for any kind of news from either the doctors or the security staff while they brought each other up to speed on things.

 

It had been a little tricky to explain to the others about Kaiba's setback without going into the ugly details, but Mokuba got the idea that Seth had something to do with it anyway.

 

"I figured he did something to upset Seto," he said disdainfully. "I saw him outside Ryou's room a minute ago, and he gave me a guilty look and then went slinking away down the hall." He shook his head. "Man, I thought Seto was good at pissing people off! What's this guy's problem, anyway? I mean, he may look like my brother, but he doesn't seem too bright!"

 

"Can't argue with you there," Jonouchi said. "Can't see why anyone would mistake one of them for the other, either, now that you mention it," he added under his breath.

 

Honda and Anzu were sorry to hear about Kaiba's condition and even more concerned about Ryou, but they were not at all pleased to hear that the search for the thief was back on again.

 

"He must still be on the grounds," Mokuba said between gulps of cola. "Security keeps getting alerts on the system, but by the time they get to the area, nobody's there. They're starting to get a little spooked."

 

Jonouchi noticed that Mokuba had barely nibbled on anything, and he felt pretty much the same way - there was a knot of worry in his stomach that wasn't going to let anything else in. Honda raised his eyebrows at the food-free space in front of Jonouchi, but he didn't say anything, partly because he was busy wolfing down another sandwich.

 

"Even if we find the other Bakura," Anzu said worriedly, "how is that going to help Kaiba and Ryou? Has anyone figured out why this is happening and what we're supposed do about it?"

 

"Not yet, but that's why we were trying to talk to them together," Yugi said. "We're hoping they can tell us something that will explain what's going on here."

 

"We'll figure something out, with or without their help," Jonouchi said with a scowl, as if daring anyone to argue the point, which no one wanted to do.

 

"Of course we will," Yugi agreed. He sounded so confident that the rest of them brightened up a little. Jonouchi smiled at him gratefully. Times like these, he was really glad he'd stopped being an idiot and became Yugi's friend instead.

 

There was a soft tap on the door. Mokuba was out of his chair and across the room before the doctor stuck his head in a second later.

 

"Mr. Kaiba is stable now, sir," he said. "He's still in a deep sleep, but he might wake up again at any moment. I thought you'd want to be there when he does."

 

Mokuba breathed a huge sigh of relief; Jonouchi kept his a little less obvious.

 

"The number of visitors should be very limited, however," the doctor went on. He darted a quick glare around the room at all of them. "Mr. Kaiba must not be put under any more stress!"

 

"Right!" Mokuba exclaimed. He turned to Jonouchi. "Come on! I know he'll want to see you as soon as he wakes up!" He didn't wait, but bounded out through the door on the medic's heels.

 

Anzu and Honda stared at Jonouchi, mouths hanging open.

 

"He will? Kaiba? You sure about that?" Honda asked.

 

"Yeah - no offense, but you're not exactly his favorite person!" Anzu said.

 

Jonouchi didn't meet their eyes and didn't move from his chair. He might have thought differently for a little while there, but now they were probably right - in fact, maybe more right than before.

 

"You should go with Mokuba," Yugi said quietly.

 

"I'm not so sure about that," Jonouchi muttered.

 

"I am," Yugi said. "Mokuba is as well; he's said so all along. Talk to him, Jonouchi. Even if he's not awake, I'm sure it will help."

 

Avoiding the others' curious gazes, Jonouchi shrugged and stood up. He supposed he owed Kaiba an explanation, and maybe it was safer to give it to him while he wasn't conscious.

 

"I'll see how he's doing for a minute, anyway, and give Mokuba a little company," he said casually. "Then maybe I'll come out and help you guys search for Bakura."

 

"Okay," Honda said. He stood up as well, but Jou caught him sharing a puzzled glance with Anzu. "We'll check in on Ryou again before we join the search. He was sound asleep when we came in a few minutes ago."

 

"The nurse said he was fine, but he looked so pale and weak," Anzu said. "I can't believe he actually looks worse than he did that time in the Battle City Tournament!"

 

"We'll find the answers we need to help both of them," Yugi said confidentially. "But first, we have to find that thief Bakura!"

 

"Right!" Honda agreed, and Anzu nodded.

 

Along with Yugi, they headed down the corridor toward Ryou's room. All three of them had that familiar determination on their faces, that never-give-up thing they'd all learned from hanging around Yugi and Yami Yugi.

 

Jonouchi stood in the corridor with his hand on the doorknob of Kaiba's room. As grateful as he was for Yugi's endless optimism, he also couldn't help thinking that for once, Yugi had no more clue what was going on than the rest of them did. The Spirit of the Ring, who had known enough to warn Ryou and Bakura, still didn't seem to know what they were really up against. Even the King of Games couldn't win against some totally unknown force.

 

"I wish it was as simple as figuring out what card to play next," he said to himself. "I'm getting pretty good at that, but this -!"

 

Somehow, it seemed like things had gotten just a little more complicated than that here.

 

 

---

 

Jonouchi eased into Kaiba's room quietly. Mokuba sat in a chair by the side of the bed, leaning forward to look down at his brother's face. He looked up when Jou came over; his dark eyes seemed huge in his worried face.

 

"He's gotten awfully quiet," he said.

 

Jonouchi glanced around; as far as he could tell, the equipment seemed to be reading about the same as it had been before, but he knew right away what Mokuba meant. Kaiba wasn't just peaceful now, he was still.

 

He squatted down next to Mokuba's chair and put a hand on the kid's shoulder.

 

"You heard what the doc said - he's just sleeping," Jonouchi said. "He probably needs the rest, so it's a good thing." At the same time, he remembered the doctor saying "deep sleep," and wondered if that was just supposed to be a less scary way of saying "coma."

 

"It's creeping me out," Mokuba said. "This is too much like the way he was after he lost that duel to Yugi, when it was like his mind just went away someplace where nobody could reach him."

 

"Yeah," Jonouchi said, "or the way Mai was after she lost that duel to Malik's dark side. It's like there's some kind of Shadow Game going on that we can't see."

 

"Yugi said it reminds him of how you all passed out when the Spirit of the Millennium Ring pulled everyone into a Shadow Game," Mokuba said with a shiver.

 

"Yeah," Jonouchi said with a frown, "It is kind of like that too, now that you mention it, but I'm pretty sure Bakura's not doing this. At least, I'm sure the Egyptian one isn't. And remember how the Spirit of the Ring protected Ryou from Yugi's God Card? I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be doing this to Ryou, either. In fact he's probably the only reason Ryou isn't as far gone as Kaiba is right now."

 

"So what is doing it?" Mokuba asked insistently. "Yugi told me what they were saying - before Bakura went ballistic - and it sounded like that duel they were having might have been a Shadow Game. But if it is, why is it affecting Seto like this and not them?"

 

"I don't know, Mokuba," Jonouchi sighed. "I wish I could figure it out for you, but I can't."

 

"I wish they'd both go back where they came from," Mokuba said. He'd been acting like the adult of the house all day, but now he sounded more like the sulky pre-teenager he really was. "In fact, I wish they'd never shown up here at all!"

 

"I know what you mean, trust me!" Jonouchi said. "Fact is, they'd probably be glad to go back to their own world, if they knew how they got here in the first place."

 

"I don't care what they want," Mokuba said. "I just want Seto to wake up and be okay."

 

"Me too," Jonouchi agreed emphatically. "Even if he does hate my guts even more than he already did," he added under his breath.

 

---

 

Alarmed by the way Ryou had faded suddenly into sleep, Seth had watched over him for a few minutes, until a nurse came in to check on him. They couldn't understand each other, but by her reassuring smile she let Seth know that Ryou was only sleeping and in no danger.

 

He left the room, but he had no idea what to do next. He knew he wasn't welcome anywhere near Seto Kaiba, and he there was nothing he could do to help there, anyway. He didn't see how he could be any help in the search for Bakura, either. He couldn't communicate with the guards, and Bakura was likely to avoid him most of all, anyway.

 

He followed the corridor around a corner into another wing of the house, and found a small sitting room with windows that looked out on a pool and a fountain. The tall spray of water glimmered in the failing light at the end of the day, and the soft sound of it through an open window was soothing. But as dusk deepened the air outside became cool, so he closed and latched the window, then sat by it in the near silence. It was the quietest place he'd found in this strange world, where there was always something humming, flashing, making noise or moving. Already, he missed the utter stillness of the desert.

 

Seth's mind wandered over all he'd seen and heard since the morning that seemed so long ago, but he couldn't make sense of it. He could not imagine what magic had brought them here, and he was baffled by Jumoke's warning to Bakura.

 

He couldn't think about Jumoke anymore; it hurt his heart even more than the throb of pain in his face. He tried not to think about Bakura, either, but he didn't succeed. He never had succeeded in that. In fact, he realized now that he had held on to Jumoke's memory so desperately because he was afraid of losing his heart and soul to Bakura again.

 

It grew dark outside, although the sky above the trees glowed with strange light from the city. Seth had seen lights burn without oil or wick in this world, but he didn't know how to light them, so he sat by the window in the growing darkness. A cool breeze stirred in the room, and he thought he should get up and close the window. Then he remembered that he already did.

 

He felt a warm breath by his ear.

 

"Dreaming, my priest?"

 

His eyes flew open, but before he could see who had spoken, there was a firm but gentle mouth on his bruised lips, and hands on his shoulders holding him back in the chair, and a weight in his lap. Still, he struggled to see, to make sure it was the one he knew it must be. The breath, the scent, the touch of the lips were all familiar, but he needed to see to be certain. The strong chest he pressed back with his palms was as well remembered as the mouth that parted from his and drew back.

 

Bakura's white hair gleamed in the dim light. His eyes were like desert shadows.

 

"Tell me, Priest Seth," the thief said with a smile, "just how were you planning to show this common thief the truth of how you feel and how you have always felt for him?"

 

Seth stared up at the scarred face for a moment with his heart pounding, while Bakura waited. He wasn't really thinking at all when his fingers tangled in the thief's pale hair.

 

"Like this," he said, and pulled Bakura's head down for another kiss.

 

---

to be continued...

 

Next chapter - lemon alert! - and Jonouchi makes a shocking discovery.