Ryou walked home in the drizzle, shopping bags in hand, brain working flat out. To the casual observer, he was walking in a daze – eyes glazed and walking on autopilot as his mind hammered out an assignment, assembling a plan of attack for the project.

It was Ryou's first year of University, and so far so good. Hadn't failed anything yet. He was a month shy of his nineteenth birthday – Joey was determined to get him hammered for once in his life.

He couldn't help but smile at that. Despite going on to different Universities, different jobs, different paths (and in Tea's case a different country altogether) they'd all managed to stay in contact and just as close as ever. Meeting up on the days they were all off and in town. Moral support. They all had their scars.

Ryou's hurt when it was cold.

The tree next to him shivered and he was jolted from his musings. A moving tree? But there was no breeze.

The tree meowed.

Ryou smiled. That explained that, then.

He walked up the steps to his scrap of a house and put down the shopping, fumbling for his keys. Since… then, he had a nervous streak that wouldn't go away. Actually, no, it wasn't really a nervous streak, just him being terribly, terribly alert to everything. Especially himself. Waking up in the morning with a dead arm was a surge of panic. Anything he couldn't really explain set him on edge. He'd had a public shivering fit on-campus when he couldn't remember what he'd had for breakfast that morning.

Most people put his worries down to him being high-strung, but Yugi and co. knew the truth, which was nice.

It was emotional baggage that had eventually forced him out of the flat he'd spent his Domino High Years in. Now he was in this strange, strange house-thing – it reminded him of terrace houses from his homeland only even smaller, with a tiny kitchen/living/dining combo with a little hall/staircase thing on the bottom floor, and his bedroom on top of it. One person only, teeny weeny little box thing and there were cracks in the ancient walls and brickwork, but he didn't care. It was cosy and warm, free of horrible memories and fast filling up with much better ones.

Made up for the blasted sticky door, he thought, wrestling with the wretched thing…

Eventually he shoved it open, tumbling into the hall. A box of tissues from his shopping clipped his head, nicking open his temple.

He sighed. 'Bugger.'

Oh well, he thought, picking himself up and starting to collect his spilled shopping. It was a tiny scratch and nothing broke. Had nothing broken? No, no glass anywhere or food spilled all over the floor, but there were packages and boxes spilling from bags…

Ryou looked up towards the kitchenette at some point, just by chance. Not deliberately looking around or anything, just where his head was at that moment.

It took him a little moment to realise what was out of place. There was a man in his kitchen. He was standing impossibly still, like a wax figure. Not even a ripple went through the great swathe of purple cape he had draped around himself. Gold hair standing up like he'd been electrified. There were veins standing up on his face like he was unstoppably, uncomprehendingly furious, yet his eyes were hooded like he was half-asleep. Mouth slack.

A stolen, static-filled, second-hand memory coughed up a name for the other man – Marik.

Ryou didn't move, shopping forgotten, staring.

Time slowed. The moment stretched on forever, as infinite and fragile as a soap bubble, with Ryou staring and Marik just existing.

Marik's head suddenly swung, eyes boring sidelong into Ryou's fragile face.

He smiled.

Ryou's lizard brain took control and he ran like a deer from a wolf, blind instinct sending him bolting for the staircase. Marik leapt over the counter, thundering after Ryou and tackling him to the floor at the foot of the stairs.

Ryou cried out, air slammed from his lungs and ribs cracking. Marik was easily twice his size, effortlessly pinning the scrawny boy to the floor. Ryou fought madly, but couldn't budge him. Marik slammed a knee into his stomach and he was nearly sick, seizing up in pain.

Marik put an arm across Ryou's neck and leant his full weight on him, making the smaller boy choke while he rummaged in his trouser pocket for something. Ryou's head was spinning, in too much pain for him to be properly afraid. He couldn't breathe. Marik was crushing him and there was bugger all he could do about it, he could feel himself starting to slip away…

He opened his eyes and saw Marik with a little green bottle in hand, grinning again, and the world came rushing back.

Marik had splashed a few drops of foul-tasting concoction into his mouth before Ryou wrenched an arm free, digging his fingers into Marik's eyes.

The Egyptian roared in pain, rearing backwards with hands flying to his face as the bottle bounced off the floorboards near Ryou's head. The smaller boy scrambled away from him, flying up the stairs.

Ryou slammed the door to his bedroom shut, locking it with trembling hands, heart pounding. His mouth tasted like putrid ditch water, and with another bolt of terror he realised that the taste went down his throat – whatever it was, he'd swallowed some of it.

Marik. Marik? He vaguely remembered a boy from battle city with huge purple eyes, shaggy blonde hair… He had almost no memory of that time – the ring had been in control of him.

He was starting to shake now. I'm going into shock, he thought. If I want to get out of here, I'm going to have to keep moving.

He stumbled to his feet – why the hell had he run upstairs?! Marik was downstairs – no he wasn't, he was thumping up the staircase. The window. There was a drainpipe running up the side of the house, Ryou could get down to the street and go find help.

He made it two steps before his legs gave way.

The world swung sideways, his head smacking on the corner of his desk on the way down. He forced himself to his feet, head spinning harder than a drunken ballerina, and collapsed again before he could get off his elbows and knees. He couldn't think properly, but the revelation hit him like a thunderbolt – he'd been poisoned.

The resulting surge of adrenalin was enough for him to wrench himself to his feet and hurl himself at the window, but it burnt up faster than kerosene soaked tissue paper. He skinned his knuckles on the windowsill and hit the ground hard, black watercolour seeping in the edges of his vision.

It was hard to breathe now; whatever he'd swallowed was constricting the muscles in his throat and chest. All sound was muffled, like his head was wrapped in a pillow. He was slipping away, he could feel it, but he'd be dammed if he was going without a fight.

He forced himself up again for a third time, getting to his knees. With another cautious step, he got on one foot, surge of hope going through him.

It wasn't until he got up on his other foot, completely upright, almost deaf, nearly blind and seconds from completely slipping away, that the part of his brain still functioning realised that there were hands under his arms and someone behind him was propping him up.

His knees gave way, the smaller boy falling backwards into Marik's arms. The Egyptian caught and lowered him so gently, as if he was cradling a lover. Ryou was barely awake now, breaths shallow and hitching in his throat, too out of it to be really afraid. Clinging onto the waking world with his fingertips.

Marik sank back on his haunches, drawing the skinny boy gently back into the folds of his cloak. He listened to his ragged little breaths, watching his eyes flicker and glaze. Marik found himself brushing hair off Ryou's face, one hand inside his shirt on his narrow, cold chest.

Ryou's eyes slid shut, breathing slowing to nothing as he lost the fight against the sedative.