Title: We Might Fall
Author: Nina/technicolornina
Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh!: GX
Genre: Romance with a side of DDD:, whatever genre that might be.
Pairing/Characters: Jyuudai, Johan, Satou
Word Count: 1 718
Spoilers: Up through 115.
Story Rating: PG-13
Story Summary: Satou will have his revenge. One way or the other. Even if he doesn't die, Jyuudai will fall.
Notes: "Krigeren-sama" is a Norwegian/Japanese hybrid that translates roughly to "Great Mr. Warrior." Although Johan never uses a nickname in canon for Jyuudai, there are hints during the Ryou/Yubel duel that Johan has either called Jyuudai "my beloved" or something similar, or that Jyuudai might have expected such a thing. This is, hopefully, a more Johan-esque pet name than "beloved Jyuudai." Also, this is something of a "what if?" A/U, in which Satou (homicidal teacher who wanted to kill Jyuudai--literally--for being late to class, remember him?) does not fall into the pit, but hits his knees first and survives.
Feedback: I get lots of "favourite story" and "story alert" e-mails. I don't get all that many review e-mails. Make me a happy Ninalyn and change that? I will give you hearts if you do.
Special Thanks/Dedications: This story is for heleentje, because I don't think I've ever dedicated anything to her. Much love, dear!
Now that we are older, I remember you
Reaching out to show me all the things that I must do
Now that we are older, I remember youth
Now that we are close to death and close to finding truth.
We might fall, we might fall,
We might fall, darling, we might fall
We might fall, we might fall,
We might fall, darling--we might fall.
--Ryan Star, "We Might Fall"
It is over, he thinks, as he first collapses to his knees and then falls forward with one hand on Scab Scar Knight—just barely missing the pit that would have killed him.
He has lost to that miserable little brat who calls himself a duelist, the one who just fainted on the other side of this bridge. Satou feels himself sliding into blackness, and then there is a call—not for him, but for the brat curled on his side opposite him.
"Jyuudai? Jyuudai—" He knows that voice. Oddly high and sharp, a voice calculated to be clear even when calling to the back of a several-thousand-seat auditorium—the Andersen boy, the transfer from North School. His voice is joined by one even higher, but without the same effeminate lilt: Marufuji Shou.
"Aniki!"
"Jyuudai!"
"Is that his—"
"Yeah." A pause. "Shou, is there water down here?"
"There's a river back there somewhere—"
"Go get him water." The trees somewhere behind Satou to the right rustle. "Jyuudai?" And then, teasing, but covering an undercurrent of worry: "You should answer when someone's calling you, krigeren-sama—Jyuudai!"
Jyuudai groans and pulls himself up to a half-sitting position, supported by both arms. Satou hears feet pounding to his right. Sama, he thinks. Bad enough the shining star of North School has fallen under the sway of Duel Academia's worst student—that silly pet name, that -sama, seriously meant or not, digs into his flesh like a poisoned barb-pointed dart.
The Andersen boy practically flies past him, stripping off his vest as he goes, folding it into a cushion. Jyuudai puts one hand to his forehead, looking for all the world as though he's fending off vertigo or a headache, and squints up at the figure on one knee at his side. " . . . Johan . . . ?"
"Who else would it be?" Jyuudai's arm buckles, and the Andersen boy slides his arms under Jyuudai's shoulders, lowering him to the ground with the vest beneath his head. "Lie back and rest." He grimaces at the band around Jyuudai's wrist and touches it with one finger. "We have to find a way to get these damned things off." He reaches up a single hand to stroke Jyuudai's hair off his face, and the dull, burning-red anger Satou feels for him bursts into pure white-flame hate. There is no hiding the import in every line and motion of that gesture, and a single line of thought begins in Satou's head: Him? Out of every boy in this school who would consider your companionship a privilege, you chose Yuuki Jyuudai?
Jyuudai murmurs something, his normally brash voice so soft that even at this distance Satou cannot catch his words. The Andersen boy answers with a simple "Hmm?", pitched in the range Satou normally associates with a mother soothing a sick child. Satou cannot see the breath Jyuudai takes in—the Andersen boy is blocking any view of him from the shoulders down to the edge of Satou's field of vision—but he hears it, and he sees the teal-haired head turn. "Satou-sensei?"
That's right, he thinks to himself, bitterly, as the boy gets to his feet. Behind him, Jyuudai pulls himself back up to sitting. Don't bother noticing there are two of us until your little nighttime companion points it out. Satou was impressed by the boy's written work in class—clear and competent if without flair, and flair Satou did not expect from him because of simple language barrier; according to the profiles for the transfers that all the teachers received, Johan Andersen's native tongue is Norwegian and he learned Japanese from an English-speaking teacher. Now, he realises, that competency does not extend beyond the classroom. Just another Jyuudai after all, just as much like him as student gossip claims.
The Andersen boy approaches him, and Satou closes his eyes. He does not want to have to discourse with Yuuki Jyuudai's newest disciple. "Satou-sensei?" A hand comes to rest between Satou's shoulderblades. It is large, that hand, and cool, and as he feigns unconsciousness it creeps to his left shoulder and from there two fingers of it land on his neck.
"He's breathing, but I can't find his pulse from this side," that high voice says. Then it says something Satou does not need to speak Norwegian to understand is a curse. "Do you think he took a harder hit, if he lost . . . ?" The fingers trail down Satou's neck to the front, still looking for a pulse and not finding one. "We need to get him help, Jyuudai."
"Lights . . . . are still out," Jyuudai answers. The Andersen boy runs two fingers down Satou's spine, then puts one hand under his shoulder and one under his hip and flips him onto his back. Satou allows himself to be rolled, going as limp as though he truly is unconscious. With the tiny bit of energy he has slowly regained, it isn't at all hard. He feels a pair of hands at his neck, loosening his tie and unbuttoning the top of his shirt to try again.
"Then we need to find some other way to get him out of here or get someone in here for him, because I still can't find his pulse and I think his portal artery should be somewhere right around here."
Aorta, you fool, Satou thinks, and then his shirt is undone and the boy is checking his belt. I suppose there's no question where your real talents lie.
"I don't think there's anything else I can do. I know you're supposed to make sure fainting victims aren't wearing anything tight, but I don't remember what comes after that. I think what we were told in class is 'call 112'." He slips the belt by a couple of notches and then there is a rustle of fabric as he moves . . . something. "Damn it."
Jyuudai answers again, and though the Andersen boy seems to understand perfectly, Satou cannot make it out. "My PDA's missing. I think it might have fallen out." Those cool fingers land on Satou's wrist and feel it. "Can I borrow yours?"
There is another rustle. Satou opens his eyes just a crack and sees a foot by his head. Yes—this will do. He can take care of this foolish, falsely competent boy and show Jyuudai just what dueling is really about, and all it will take is one fast movement.
The boy does not cry out when he stumbles, only lets out a quiet "mmph" of surprise; the hand closed on his ankle too quickly to register. But the Andersen boy is far from out of breath when his centre of balance tips and his foot catches on the edge of the pit.
The Andersen boy's lungs are sound indeed from years of calling his attacks to the very back of large arenas, and there is no mistaking the scream as it fills the air.
Satou thinks it the second-sweetest thing he has ever heard.
The first is the anguished echo from just across the bridge.
Jyuudai does not think before he staggers to his feet, Johan's name still on his lips. It happened so quickly—Johan standing, and then—
Right now, Jyuudai has no use for blame—did not even see the hand that tripped Johan over and into that pit his professor barely missed. There is no thought in his head beyond a single word, two syllables beating over and over like the wings of trapped birds: Johan! Johan!
He isn't even aware of making the choice to take the jump himself, or of the grin that lights his professor's face when he does; he simply jumps, still a little unsteady and with his duel disk still on his arm, and then his feet hit water and his entire body is submerged. Jyuudai feels stone floor beneath his feet and pushes up with what little strength he has, and when his face breaks the surface he looks around, desperate for some hint that he is not alone and nearly singing with relief when he sees Johan, hands pressed to the wall, only a few feet away from him.
"Johan!"
Johan turns just a little and gasps. "Jyuudai!" He pushes off from the wall and reaches out to pull Jyuudai against his chest, maybe not trusting that the other boy will be able to keep himself afloat after his duel. "What are you doing down here?"
"Coming after you." Jyuudai does not know the truth of the words, or even that he is about to speak them, until they are on his lips, but he knows they are true. Johan could go to the end of the earth or beyond and Jyuudai would set out to find him. In the meantime, though, there is this slightly irritated look he is getting from a pair of brilliant green eyes.
"I hope you know that was really, really stupid," Johan says. "You could have gotten yourself killed." Then the corners of his eyes crinkle up.
Jyuudai is not entirely not expecting the pair of lips, damp and just a little parted, that press against his and catch his bottom lip between them. Part of him suggests that perhaps he ought to put a hand on Johan's neck to keep him there, but when he tries he immediately starts to sink, and in the resulting flail their lips part and he has to try to think of something intelligent to say.
" . . . what was that for?" It's a start, at least.
"Thank you." Johan smiles at him, and Jyuudai tries to come up with an appropriate answer and fails. Johan's smile begins to falter. "That . . . wasn't your first kiss or anything, was it? You weren't saving it for anything, I mean . . . ?"
Jyuudai has a sudden confused mental image of saving up kisses to send in for a prize from a cereal box, but shakes his head. "Maybe just sometime when I wasn't wet." The corners of Johan's eyes crinkle up again.
"I'll give you a better one when we get out of here and dry off," he says, and Jyuudai smiles back.