Yu-Gi-OC Rights

The bed was oddly unmade and unruly. He sat upon the white sheets. The room heated rapidly until he felt like he’d mistakenly entered a boiler. Turning on the ceiling fan sounded like a nice idea but, oh, the switch was so far away. He curled up on the bed. A shiver wracked him despite the temperature. He covered his eye in an attempt to stop the dull ache beginning behind it. His consciousness drifted into unsteady rest.

“...you’re…night and…couldn’t find you…my room?”

When he opened his eye, the overhead lights were painful. He focused on the pale face looking down on him in concern. Rain’s cerulean eyes tilted, and her criminal mark adjusted to her frown. The ceiling fan rotated on its highest setting. The rapid, blustering air rustled the white-and-purple unzipped sleeves of her riding jacket as well as her long braid. She’d said something. He was certain it was her voice drifting through his dreams, which consisted of vague colors and a sense of dread.

Jose had mentioned hallucinations. This wasn’t the real Rain Orichalcum. If she happened to espy him collapsed in a random bed, she’d mind her business and move on. If this was his fever dream, fine. He was miserable enough to take comfort where he could get it. He lurched forward and threw his arms around her midsection. She gasped and stood up straight. His cheek pressed against her stomach, rubbing against the sheer, mauve material covering it. 

“Um, Director?” she murmured. “Are you in there?”

“Rain…”

Placido lightly pulled her in the direction of the bed. The instant she sat, he rested his head on her thighs. She held her hands up as if held at gunpoint. “Uh, something’s really wrong, isn’t it?”

An entire monologue played in his head about how it wasn’t so bad, truly, and he’d be back to full health in no time. His throat felt raw and his thoughts gained a quality of fuzziness, so he could only manage, “Illness.”

“Ah. Um. W-what can I do for you?”

The next words came to him much more instantly and easily: “Even this version of you is so eager to please.”

“Version?” she repeated. “I’m not- I mean… I guess. You must be feeling awful to be this far gone, so I’ll do whatever will help you.”

He supposed he should be grateful his mind decided to deliver him into a kind and pleasant dream instead of the usual hellscapes reliving his worst memories. He mumbled, “Why?”

“You need help! Nobody should have to go through this alone. Plus, I believe you’d do the same for me.”

He would, but not like this, with the tenderness and patience of a caring lover. He wanted to say, “What makes you think I’m alone? You really believe everyone deserves such dedicated nursing, knowing how humans are?”

But what came out was, “Am I alone?”

“Of course not,” she whispered, and she smoothed down the tufts of hair against his temple sticking out from under his hood. Definitely not the real Rain, he thought, since she had nary a tremor at touching him. Hell, the real one would have fled the room much earlier. This one stayed and seemed to gain courage. She stroked his head like petting a beloved animal, fingers either working through what of his hair showed or tracing the folds of his hood.

Though the comfort in it caused him to further melt into her lap, he couldn’t help but think he didn’t even deserve the hallucination. He should suffer. He should be alone.

“What is a robot illness like?” she said. “Should I get you water? It’s still bad for you to overheat, right? Um.”

The back of her hand pressed against his cheek. He managed to open his eye and witness her soft expression. She noticed him watching with a start, and she looked away. “You’re, um, really warm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you sweat before. It’s bad, right?”

It was nice to hear her ponder aloud. Then he couldn’t get tangled up in his own thoughts. “Water. Sure.”

Hydration wasn’t an issue for him exactly, but it would improve the efficiency of his cooling systems. Would it? Perhaps it was something he made up in his head. He hadn’t experienced thirst in this strange, new body. The heat was terrible like being caught in a pillar of flame. His systems were at least intact enough to obey his desire to remove the armor and clothing from his torso and arms. The sheets were burning from his own radiated warmth. It hit him he was now alone in the room, and he fought the sudden urge to cry. No. He couldn’t be so pathetic, delusion or not. 

Yet that ability to relax because of not being on his lonesome, something he hadn’t experienced in so long-

“I’m back- uh?” He rolled onto his side. Rain gaped at his bare upper half. She closed her eyes for a moment, face flushing, and held up a glass of water. “This is for- um. You’re shaking… Here.”

She cradled his shoulders in the crook of her arm and brought the edge of the cool glass to his lips. Where did she get the idea he needed help to drink? But her support consoled him, and he drank without complaint. 

“I brought you something else,” she said, so quiet you’d have thought her surrounded by sleeping lions. Cold pressed against his neck. The relief was so instant he moaned. She made a funny face and said, “I put ice and water in a baggie. Do you want to lay back on it?”

He rested his head on her chest and looped his arm around her torso. It was just a delusion yet the comfort of closeness to another felt like being wrapped in a warm blanket during winter, protected from all strife. It shouldn’t be what anyone needs once they stop being a babe.

…Should it? Now that he was here, he wanted to stay, to keep hearing those whispered words intended for him alone.

“Okay. I won’t leave you,” she said. “How did this happen?”

Too much to explain and also mildly mortifying. “Please talk to me.”

“You actually said please,” she muttered. The timbre of her words added a slight rumble to her chest and throat, which he felt every note of. Her fingers absentmindedly worked through his hair and traced shapes on his hood. “My team had a WRGP match today. The order was Toru, Misaki, me. Toru gets really, really upset when he loses, even when he beats an opponent. Misaki–Antithesis, if you don’t remember, that’s her fake name I guess. She doesn’t react much to anything. It’s hard to look at her the same since she told me she chose to be built as an android with no emotion. Anyway, it came down to me against their anchor duelist, and I did end up winning. Blue-Eyes Spirit Dragon is super duper useful, ‘cause I mean, I see people talk about Ultimate Spirit a lot without the little fella.”

Hm. She would refer to her monsters so casually. So adorably.

“I’ve never seen you smile like that,” she said.

“Your plushie,” Placido muttered. “You still have it?”

He’d never forget the first day they met, how the only item she brought from her apartment besides necessities was the Blue-Eyes White Dragon toy. Rain’s eyes softened. “I hold it against me every night. It’s childish, right?”

The softness of laying against her had an addictive quality. He slumped further against her. She exhaled, sat back against the headboard, and twined her arms around him.

“I want to be more like you.”

“What?” She laughed lightly. “You’re truly not yourself, Director.”

It was true, though–being capable of doing what made her happy regardless of judgement or appearances? He envied it. If it were so easy, he’d be able to hold her like this in reality, melt in her embrace. 

As it was, with him? No one would ever. No one should ever, least of all Rain.

“Tell me more.”

“Mkay. It makes me super nervous to be in front of such a huge crowd. We’re not a popular team, but so many people show up to watch any WRGP match. Focusing is ten times more difficult compared to a normal duel. I try to…”

Her lyrical voice lulled him. He drifted into a peaceful rest despite the discomfort of the virus.

.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.•.

.//SUCCESSFUL_REBOOT_REPAIR

A couple of blinks later, the white text and black covering his vision dissipated. His brow wrinkled. For whatever reason he was naked from the waist up. Judging by the clothes strewn about the floor bespeckled by morning light from the closed blinds, he’d woken up in Rain’s room.

Soft breaths sounded above him. He rolled onto his back. His eye widened. He lay in her lap and, judging by the way she slept propped up against the headboard, it’d been that way overnight. So he, what, collapsed atop her and she remained in this exact position for his sake?

Unbelievable.

His stomach twisted, though, and he scolded himself for it. He left the bed in slow, deliberate movements. She stirred when his weight left the mattress but didn’t wake. Once up, he brought back his full armor and top. He walked on his tiptoes out of her room and down the steps. 

A part of him wanted to throw a vase against a wall and scream.

“You seem recovered.”

He spun on his heel. Jose stood in the lobby and squinted down at him. Placido grumbled, “Yes, I’m fine, as I told you I would be.”

“What’s the damage?”

“Nothing. I handled it as I said I would.”

“Hey, I noticed you left- oh?” Rain padded into the entryway barefoot and rubbed her eyes. Her hair was disheveled, and loose, white hairs stuck out of her braid. “Are you better now?”

“I see,” Jose said. “There was someone to look after you.”

“That is not what happened.”

“It’s not?” she squeaked.

“Don’t worry yourself, Rain,” Jose said as he passed them both by. “You’re doing wonderful work here.”

“Thank you! I think!”

Placido could chase after him and tear him to pieces, frankly. Rain’s presence in the room seemed to burn. On the edge of his vision, he saw her staring.

“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t mention this. Ever.”

“Ah, did I do something wrong?”

Just console her. Admit all of it. Hold her again.

He sighed through his nostrils and walked away from her without another word.

"That can't be true." Kiyoko hated hearing the pitiful crack in her own voice. The giant gear spinning below them tossed iridescent Moment over her and Antinomy. (Bruno. Though she denied it, she knew those eyes.) "Because if it is, then this disaster and Ark Cradle- This is all your fault!" Antinomy/Bruno considered his visor. The aura he radiated was quiet and contemplative, so opposite from Bruno, who spilled his every thought. The pair was separated from Team 5D's; the silence between them was as tense and thick as all their unspoken words. “I know," he whispered. "Now help me."

One for @peanutbutterontheroofofyourmouth