Title: Goodnight
Author: Dai Otenba
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor will I ever own Yugioh. It is property of it's creator Kazuki Takahashi. I also do not own the song that inspired me to write this fic.
Warnings: Implied Yaoi, Underage drinking, Foul language
Pairings: Kaiba x Jounouchi
Rating: PG-13 (T)
Summary: Sometimes it's just too difficult to go from giving someone a second chance to just giving up on them altogether.
Author Notes: First off, a big hello to my lovely readers. I'm back once again, and with a nice one-shot too. x3 Now, the main inspiration for this fic came from listening to the song "Goodnight, Goodnight" by Hot Hot Heat. I've been listening to some of their stuff lately and this song just sparked something in me. Now, I know I really should be working on my two big fic projects :sheepish grin: (If Only and Shell of a Man), but no worries! I -will- begin working on those very soon, now that school is out and I have oodles of extra time which could be used to lounge around and be lazy… but it won't. :insistent cough by Nuva: Oh! Well, enough chit-chat. Time to get things going. Hm... the only important note here is that the story is in Kaiba's POV. I hope you all enjoy reading this. Reviews and criticism are welcomed with open arms.
Crash!
I jumped slightly from my seat and shifted my gaze towards the door at the deafening sound of what appeared to be shattering glass echoing through the empty hallways of the mansion. It was late at night, from the looks of it way past midnight (I was too concerned with the source of the unwanted disturbance to actually check what time it was), and all the servants had gone home long ago. The only people left in the mansion were me and Mokuba, who was fast asleep. 'At least he was.' I said mentally, angry at the thought that the noise could have woken him up. He could be scared to death at the moment, but considering the type of person he was, he was probably more curious than scared. I sighed and pulled myself out of the small chair I had been seated in for at least 5 hours, stretching a bit and walking towards my office door. I pulled the door open as slowly as I could and slipped out quickly. I squinted my eyes down the hallway, thankful for the small stream of moonlight stretching down the hall, coming from a large window a few doors behind me. As I began to head towards the unwanted guest, I started thinking about who in their right mind would have the audacity to break into my home, let alone get caught in the act. I had the best security system money could buy, and I was a bit surprised at the fact that I hadn't been alerted to a break-in. Needless to say though, whoever this was, they were going to pay dearly, not just for breaking into my home, but for breaking whatever it was they just did.
As I finally reached the top of the stairway which lead down towards the front door, I could make out the shadow of a person just a few feet away from said door. They seemed to be stumbling around a bit, probably either looking for whatever it was they just broke or for a lightswitch. Maybe even the front door.
'Oh no you don't.' I growled mentally. 'You're not getting away that easily.'
I reached over towards a small panel next to me and flicked on one of the switches. All at once, a bright flood of light lit up below me and I could finally see who the idiot was. My eyes widened at the sight before me. I was surprised, considering…
I never expected to know said idiot.
"Katsuya?"
He was rubbing his eyes slowly, trying to get used to the sudden light in the area. Squinting a bit and looking around, he finally acknowledged the fact that I had called out to him and looked in my direction. His eyes widened comically and a large lop-sided grin spread over his features. I didn't know whether to be glad it was only him that had gotten into the house, or frightened at the way he was acting, currently waving his arms a bit too enthusiastically.
"Heeeeeey Kaiba!"
I winced a bit internally. If the noise before hadn't woken Mokuba up, the mutt's yelling certainly would. I walked towards the blond a few feet before me, hissing out as quietly yet audible as I could. "Keep your voice down puppy. You're going to wake up the entire neighborhood if you don't shut up."
I had to hold down a laugh as he squeaked a bit and covered his mouth, eyes wide yet hazy-looking. He uncovered it and looked around a bit, then turned towards me again. "I'm sorry." He rasped out slowly.
"You'd better be." I said as I began to look him over a bit. His clothes were a bit tussled, as well as his hair, but that was nothing new. I noticed however that his eye lids were drooping from time to time and he was swaying around a bit. It was then that a strong scent caught my attention.
"Katsuya?"
"Yeaaaaah?" He drawled out, rubbing at one of his eyes childishly and looking behind him for some reason.
"Why are you here?"
He gave a light hearted chuckle and smiled at me again, attempting to slap me on the arm playfully. "Ta visit you of course!" He missed however and almost ended up falling flat on his face on the carpeted floor below us. I managed to grab a hold of him and pull him back up, holding him steady.
"It's late. -Very- late. Mokuba is already asleep."
Looking up at me with these big droopy eyes, he said, "Yer not aseep yet."
"True, but it's still late. You should be home." All of a sudden he wrapped his arms around my shoulders, or at least tried to as they just ended up draped on my shoulders in a loose hold. "But I don wanna go hooooome." He whined out as he pressed his face up against my chest. The smell was stronger than before, and I blinked a few times wondering where exactly I had smelt it before. Then it all came to me.
"You're drunk." It was a statement. I didn't have to ask because I knew damn well that he was definitely -not- acting like the regular Jounouchi I knew. Sure he might be like this sometimes, but never this… off. Not to mention I realized the source of the smell and where I had been in contact with it before. Needless to say, considering I had taken over Kaiba Corp at a young age and was currently still in high school, I was and still am relatively younger than most of the business men I deal with and converse with during various meetings and parties, and being the adults that they are, a bit of alcohol was nothing but common, even a necessity at each one. I didn't wish to sink to such a low as depending on it as they did, but I had to appeal to my peers and would occasionally down at least a glass or two.
But by the look of things, Jou had downed a lot more than just one or two drinks. He gasped overdramatically again and looked up at me. "How'd you know?"
I could feel my left eye twitch just a bit. "Lucky guess." I had to keep from pummeling the blond into the floor beneath us, reminding myself that it was the alcohol that was making him this annoying and stupid. Not that he's never annoying and stupid, but when it's natural, it's kind of cute. This however… is anything but cute. It's downright unbearable.
He grinned foolishly and gave me a hardy pat on the shoulder. "Thas what I like about ya Kaiba. Yer so smart."
I rolled my eyes and did a quick look-over of the area. I gave a mental groan as my eyes took in the sight of a -very- expensive and -very- broken vase just a few feet away from us. I had picked it up on a recent trip to America and it was one of the few things in the house that I actually liked.
Apparently the blond had caught on to the fact that my attention was directed to something other then him, so he turned his head around and…
"Ack!" He screeched as he stumbled as quickly as he could to the damaged vase.
"So you finally noticed."
"It's broke." Was all that he said as he crouched down closer to the scattered pieces. "I'm… I'm sorry."
Giving a sigh and running a hand through my hair, I closed my eyes and looked away. "It's okay. Don't worry about it." At the sound of pieces of ceramic being moved, I cracked open an eye and quirked an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"
"Picking it up." He said simply. I noticed his head hung low and his shoulders twitch a bit.
"Jounouchi… leave it alone. You'll hurt yourself."
"I'm sorry." He kept on picking up piece after piece. As I headed towards him to get him to stop I noticed a bit of red smeared on the white and blue ceramic shards on the floor.
He looked back towards me, his head over his shoulder. "Seto, my hands hurt. It really hurts…" His eyes began to water and he looked down at the shattered remains of the vase he had broken.
"Jounouchi, get up. We need to bandage up your hands." I set a hand atop of his shoulder, but he wrenched away from my grip. "No, I gotta fix it!"
"Damnit Jounouchi, put them down!"
The tinkling sound of the shattered remains falling to the ground echoed through the quiet hall. After that all that could be heard were the soft snifflings and mumblings of "I'm sorry" of the blond still kneeling on the floor.
A few minutes later I had successfully managed to grab some gauze from one of the bathrooms upstairs and wrap up his hands. I had to do it all in the living room downstairs since he was in complete hysterics after the vase incident. He refused to leave his spot on the floor but after a bit of convincing I was able to at least get him to stay in the living room. They weren't as badly cut up as I thought they would have been, but he would need to keep the wrapping on for at least a week for the cuts to fully heal. Currently I was sitting in the couch, Jou's head in my lap. He had calmed down a bit now and stuck to staring at his bandaged hands.
"I 'member when I had to do this myself. Back in the day when I was still in that gang." I looked down at him only to catch a pair of hazy amber eyes staring up at me. "Head hurts. I don't like it."
I huffed and grinned a bit. "Of course it does. It's called a hangover. And hangovers are never a comfortable and likeable thing."
After giving a soft whine he turned so that he was on his side and continued staring at the open window in front of us.
"You're an idiot." I whispered softly, though I knew that the blond was far too out of it to understand what I was saying. "I could kick you out right now, tell you to go home and never come back. Yell at you for breaking into my home, destroying that vase which cost me a fortune. You could have scared Mokuba to death."
"Seto…"
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
I couldn't help the soft smile that made it's way on my lips as I absently ran my hand through his hair. He really wasn't paying attention after all.
"I know."
It was silent for at least half an hour until he spoke up again.
"Seto?"
"Hm."
"Can I stay here tonight?"
"…sure." A quick realization came to my head. "You do know that this hangover of yours is only going to be worse when you wake up tomorrow."
He gave a soft chuckle. "Uh-huh, but you'll be there to make it better, right?"
I was silent for a bit before I could reply. "Yeah."
He nuzzled into my lap a bit and yawned as he closed his eyes and gave a lazy, "Goodnight". As he lay there fast asleep, my hand sifting through his blond strands of hair and looking at his peaceful and tranquil face, I realized something.
'Sometimes it's just too difficult to go from giving someone a second chance to just giving up on them altogether.'
I -never- give up. No matter what the situation.
"Goodnight, Katsuya."
That's just how things are.
Final notes: The fluff died peoples, i'm sorry. ;.; I thought this thing was going to be fun to do, and it was... for the first couple of days. I tell ya, finishing this was HELL. I just wanted to give up on it totally, but I knew I couldn't. I don't even wanna read it again it's so... It's just... ugh. Got kinda bad and all I wanted to do was get this done. I hope it's good in all of your minds. Me? I just... kinda wanna forget about this and move on. x.o