Disclaimer: Yugioh remains someone else's.

By the time Ryou's daddy came back into the room the floor had been littered with comic books and action figures and plates left over from room service (including one broken glass that'd spilled orange juice everywhere). The TV was on, tuned to some bootleg cartoon dubbed into Arabic, and the bed looked as if a Japanese and Egyptian Duel Monsters shop had erupted into war right then and there.

Ryou, an icepack on one leg, sat squashed against the pillows with Malik's head, fast asleep, cuddled up into his lap. "Hi, Daddy," Ryou offered weakly, eyes sunken like a jetlagged businessman's. "I'm sorry about the mess. But Malik likes me."

Ryou's daddy smiled, began straightening up; Ryou felt a faint warmth at not being scolded. "He certainly seems to," his daddy agreed, to which Ryou shrugged helplessly: this had just sort of happened. The past hours had all meshed together in one frantic Egyptian blur.

"You know," Ryou's daddy remarked as he set about re-sorting Ryou and Malik's decks for their respective owners, "this looks like the liveliest Malik's been. When we share this with his psychologist she'll be so thrilled! You may get to be on TV yourself and spend a lot more time with him!"

"Yes, Daddy," Ryou answered meekly, patting Malik's sleeping back and trying to ignore the pain in his own knee. He almost felt as if he wanted to cry, but Ryou's daddy was an archaeologist and that meant Ryou understood this life better than anybody. For the sake of progress and the history of the human race, untold sacrifices had to be made.