Cotton-Smothered
by Cryptographic DeLurk
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AN: Prompt was "I don't know, it was here when I woke up" and JouKai. It got out of hand.
I feel unsure about how Kaiba might react to being innocently trolled, baring escalating the situation to a death match. But hopefully this resonates~
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It was a rare morning when Seto woke up later than Jounouchi and that, in of itself, was a portent of disaster. His head felt full and groggy, and he wasn't entirely convinced the extra sleep hadn't left him worse off than a usual three hours and five cups of coffee would have. But Jounouchi had the uncanny ability to lull him deep into the confines of sleep with nothing more than afterglow and a few soothing fingers, rubbing at his temples.
Seto immediately added this to the ever-growing list of Jounouchi's worst qualities.
He felt the impulse to add yet another thing to this list, when he realised he was not quite as alone as he suspected, and who or, rather, what he was clutching to his chest. But this was reaching. Jounouchi's penchant for pulling stupid shit like this had long since been number one on the list of worst qualities.
Jounouchi was sitting on a barstool in the middle of the flat's kitchen. He was sipping coffee, picking at an egg and cut of mackerel with his chopsticks, and eating marshmallows straight out of the bag. I was the saddest excuse for breakfast Seto had ever seen – only to be outdone by the cup of dashi broth and coffee Jounouchi immediately passed across the counter to Seto.
Seto took a sip of the coffee and winced. Jounouchi was still using that outdated trash stovetop coffeepot he'd dragged here from his old apartment. He said he was better off without reminders of his old home for the most part – "But let me have this," Jounouchi had grinned lopsidedly, like Seto actually had the power to veto the decision.
Seto glared at the offending coffeepot, before returning to the matter at hand.
"Yo," Jounouchi greeted. "Sleep well?" He seemed to be distracted, trying to pick up a contrary piece of fish with his chopsticks.
His unwillingness to address what Seto was holding right in front of him was damning. Seto flung the offending object at his dumb face.
The projectile met its mark, but Jounouchi managed to fumble and catch it before it dropped down onto his egg yoke.
"What the hell is this?!" Seto barked.
Jounouchi blinked and held the item out for observation.
"It sure looks like a Blue Eyes plush toy," Jounouchi said, disinterested. He set the Blue Eyes on the counter and went back to shovelling marshmallows in his mouth.
"Yes," Seto fumed. "But why is it here?"
Jounouchi moved his mouth against the spongy white glop. He shrugged, and swallowed in what almost seemed like a yawn. "How the hell should I know?" Jounouchi asked. "It was here when I woke up."
The brazenness of this denial struck Seto off-guard. Lacking anything to say he glared.
Jounouchi seemed unconcerned. "Look, you're the dragon fanatic around here. Not me," he said. "I assumed you'd snuck it in at some point." Jounouchi snorted. "Does baby need his Blue Eyes dollie to sleep?" he mocked.
Seto's glare intensified.
"You're responsible for this," he accused.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jounouchi deflected. "But some of us have to get to work." He stuck out his tongue at Seto, and then took the opportunity to shove the rest of the egg and the marshmallows in his mouth all at once. "I'm still renovating those places out in the sticks, with that one guy Honda set me up with. Rooves don't go around tiling themselves," he said, through a mouthful of food.
Seto grumbled at the insinuation that he didn't also have places to be. But Jounouchi was walking away.
"Make sure you drink that broth," Jounouchi instructed, as he pulled his jacket over his tee. "You're going to die of malnutrition, I swear… And don't let the door hit you on the way out," he grinned, before slamming the door behind him.
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The Blue Eyes White Dragon plush toy was not one of the standard makes for either Kaiba Corp or Industrial Illusions. All indications seemed to point to the fact that it was custom made. It was made to pose sitting down, with its neck stretched back across its body, like the image that was printed on the Blue Eyes card itself. And it seemed to have some kind of wire framing holding it into position.
Really, the Blue Eyes plush was a mockery. A slight on the gorgeous majesty and power of his beast. It was little better than when Pegasus had stripped his monster of its pride by transforming it into an inferior toon copy.
So Seto was all set to ignore the toy. But somehow it always seemed to end up within arm's reach at inconvenient times, and he would find himself unconsciously grabbing for it, and feeling the comfort of its soft scales and leathery wings. And it was upsetting enough when Seto realised this was happening, even without the alarming amount of times Jounouchi was hovering nearby, grinning lopsided and smug.
Eventually he absconded with the toy and sent it to the lab for analysis. It was carefully disassembled, scanned for threats, and then reassembled.
The reports came back confirming the type of metal wiring in the interior, the thread count of the fabric of the exterior, and the density of the cotton packing material. The toy was not holding a bomb, any dangerous chemicals, or computer tracking chips.
Seto glared at the Blue Eyes plush – now sitting on his desk. The Blue Eyes glared back. Seto hated that it was proving to be much better at staring him down than the other way around.
It was the most suspicious object he had ever seen.
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"Jounouchi wake up!" Seto snarled. "I said wake up!" He whacked Jounouchi on the shoulder.
"Geez- The fuck-!" Jounouchi startled. He retaliated by shoving Seto off the bed. Seto ended up taking the covers with him, but Jounouchi seemed unfazed. He reached over the side of the bed and grabbed the covers and pulled them back up over the mattress.
He completely ignored the Blue Eyes plush sitting in Seto's lap. And the new Blue Eyes toy still dangling on the edge of the mattress. It was different than the first – stretched forward in an attack pose, its neck extended forward and its teeth bared.
"You know the drill," Jounouchi whined. "Whoever wakes up first lets the other sleep in. Why are you causing a fuss so early in the morning?"
"Jounouchi!" Seto cut in, persistently. "Why is there another Blue Eyes?!" he demanded.
Jounouchi sighed. He sat up in bed and blinked warily at Kaiba and the first toy, and then at the second.
"Kaiba, I just woke up. How would I know any more than you do?" He yawned and curled in on himself.
"Because this is your doing!" Seto snarled, but he was cut off when Jounouchi flung the second Blue Eyes toy in his face.
"God, it's early. Can't you be a little quieter?!" Jounouchi growled.
Seeing as Jounouchi was the one that took perpetual pleasure in being overly loud and obnoxious, Seto found this complaint difficult to handle. He struggled for words, but nothing he could think of seemed to capture the irony of the situation, or the immeasurable amount of rage it prompted within him.
Lacking this, he gathered the two Blue Eyes plushies and exited the bedroom.
Seto was waiting for Jounouchi when he finally deigned to rise. Seto stood behind the kitchen counter, with his arms crossed over his chest and a Blue Eyes toy flanking him on each side.
Jounouchi yawned loudly. "Couldn't get back to sleep after you woke me up!" he complained, giving Seto the evil eye, as he walked past to set up the coffeepot.
Seto persisted. "This is not amusing," he said. "Where do you keep getting these abominations from?" He waved at the offending toys.
Jounouchi sighed and he turned on the stove. "Kaiba, I really don't know where they're coming from. I didn't bring them here. And, if you didn't bring them here either… Well, it might be time to start looking at some third options."
Seto's eyes narrowed.
"What kind of third options?" he asked.
"I don't know," Jounouchi protested. "Like, maybe they're magic Blue Eyes toys. Maybe they're sentient and flew here themselves."
"There's no such thing as magic," Seto responded automatically.
Jounouchi snorted. He turned a sceptical eye on Seto.
"If you say so…" he shrugged. "But stranger things have happened hanging around you."
Seto had nothing to say to that.
"Ooh! Ooh!" Jounouchi whooped suddenly. "Maybe your dead dragon girlfriend is haunting us!" he suggested. "Maybe she sent a couple of Blue Eyes your way to protect you! And there's at least one other person in the afterlife I know would get a kick out of you grinning like an idiot over a couple of plushies."
Seto bristled immediately.
"Oh, man," Jounouchi suddenly shivered. "What if we really are being haunted by your dragon girlfriend or Atem?" he wailed fearfully.
He wasn't taking this seriously at all.
Seto bristled. "Okay, first off, fuck you."
Jounouchi recovered immediately. He snorted.
"Ya already did that~" he snarked.
"And secondly-!" Seto cut him off. "Let's try a realistic option here! If you are- in fact- not the one doing this, who else has a key to the apartment?"
Jounouchi contemplated this as the coffee finished brewing. He poured out a cup for both himself and Seto, added a liberal amount of sugar to the latter and cream to both, and sat down at the counter, next to where Seto was standing with his Blue Eyes.
"Well," Jounouchi started, "Yuugi, Shizuka, and Mai, of course. Honda and Anzu."
Seto nodded sternly. All these were expected responses.
But then Jounouchi continued. "But, then, the other day, that kid Yuugi's mentoring – Judai – came over to pick something up… And I guess Otogi could probably get in via Shizuka… And I bet Mai gave keys to Vivian and those DOMA assholes… And…"
Seto's eyes widened. He had the sudden realisation that, because of all of Yuugi and Jounouchi's stupid friends, Jounouchi's lax policy regarding home security, and some six-degrees-of-separation bullshit, basically the whole world could walk in on Seto in flagrante delicto.
"If you'll excuse me," Seto glared behind him, as he turned for the door. "I believe I'm never staying at this apartment of yours ever again."
Jounouchi failed to rise to the bait. He pouted sullenly. "Aw, don't be so dramatic, moneybags."
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It had maybe been a good dream, filled with the comfort of childhood, quiet times with Mokuba, and the times with Atem that had first made him feel alive. The pressure against his chest reassured him that he maybe didn't have to do this all alone and maybe, just maybe, things were going to be okay.
But then he woke up to a living nightmare. He couldn't see anything. Brown fielded his vision from every angle. He was smothered, suffocated. His diaphragm oscillated rapidly. He couldn't breathe.
He was absolutely covered – completely surrounded – by these giant, hairy balls!
The scream made it easily into the main room.
Jounouchi and Yuugi laughed as Kuriboh plushies shot out, rapidfire, from the bedroom door. They clinked their coffee cups together triumphantly and returned to the day old pizza they were splitting.
Seto stomped out of the bedroom. It was a bad sign that he hadn't bothered to dress – had only bothered to put on underwear and a robe. His eyes bulged.
"Deadbeat," he seethed, narrowing in on Jounouchi. "They won't be able to find your body."
"Good morning, Kaiba-kun!" Yuugi chirped.
Seto's eyes flitted to Yuugi. It was all the greeting he could manage.
"You should calm down," Jounouchi said, chuckling under his breath. "Are you taking your meds? Think about how upset Mokuba would be, if he had to fly back to Japan in the middle of his semester because you had a stroke."
"If I had a stroke, you dumb dog," Seto spat, "the blame for it would rest completely on your shoulders!" Seto scowled. "Although I suppose you're about to deny your involvement."
"Nope," Jounouchi said. "Yuugi and I totally get the credit this time. It was a lot of work getting that many Kuribohs on top of ya without waking you up."
"Yeah," Yuugi grinned sheepishly. "We just got the shipment of 'em in at the game shop. There were at least forty of them in the box we hauled up here."
"Although I wouldn't have put it past them to have… multiplied… eh?" Jounouchi said.
Seto rolled his eyes as Yuugi had the gall to laugh at a joke that lame.
Yuugi turned to him. "You look really peaceful when you're asleep, Kaiba-kun." He smiled.
To Seto's disdain, he felt himself fluster. Felt his face colour.
Jounouchi grinned at him, not smug this time – softly, knowingly.
Seto felt himself calm despite himself. He took a seat, ninety degrees from Yuugi and Jounouchi.
"I suppose this is an admission that you were behind the Blue Eyes too?" Seto asked.
Jounouchi's face twisted into something strange. "Eh~ Sorry, Kaiba. Still got no idea what's up with that~" He shrugged.
Seto felt himself start to fume again. But he reined himself in, as he accepted coffee and broth from Jounouchi.
He had a plan this time, after all.
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The one good thing about Jounouchi's lax policy regarding his apartment keys, was that Seto also had the power to give out copies to the important players on his side of the fence.
"Isono," he commanded imperiously, as he reached the top of the Kaiba Corp skyscraper. "Jounouchi Katsuya is out of Domino today, working on more of his renovation projects. What I need you to do is visit his apartment with a team of workers, and install a clandestine video surveillance system. It is absolutely necessary that he remains ignorant of its existence." Seto handed over a copy of the key firmly. "And that I am the only one with access to the footage."
Isono, in a display of the exact kind of loyalty and diligence Seto valued, did not ask questions, about the questionable legality of this course of action, or otherwise.
"Right away, Kaiba-sama," he saluted seriously, clutching the key in one hand.
Seto slept anxiously that night, and all the other nights that followed. He was manically anticipatory in his need to see the results of this experiment. He had thus far received two Blue Eyes plush toys, so it only reasoned that he should expect to see the third and final. The first two toys lay on the nightstand, looking curiously at him, and Seto met their stares with an eagerness he could barely contain. He had trouble sleeping, even when Jounouchi massaged his head and pressed the full warmth of his body against Seto.
But, inevitably, Seto had a particularly difficult and grumpy and sleep-deprived day, and finally drifted to sleep against the upsetting swirl of his thoughts. And the following morning, the third and final Blue Eyes was there.
This one had its body turned up in flight. It was the freest of all three of the Blue Eyes, and Seto felt similarly free as he woke holding it, trembling. He did not mention the appearance of the third Blue Eyes to Jounouchi, but held it contentedly in his arms throughout his morning coffee.
Jounouchi seemed surprised, but oddly pleased as he munched on his porridge.
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Seto reviewed the video footage at work. It was four in the morning when Jounouchi got up to use the bathroom and, instead of returning to bed, looked furtively to make sure Seto was deep enough in sleep before sneaking out the bedroom door.
He was wearing only a t-shirt, and his butt stuck up in the air as he dug around in a secret compartment of the couch, and pulled out a cardboard box, covered in striped airmail tape. He dug through it, spilling packing peanuts everywhere, before pulling out the third Blue Eyes plush. He threw it on the couch and busied himself with tossing the packing peanuts back into the box.
And fuck- Seto was so, so angry because, although he barely wanted to admit it, he had started to believe Jounouchi when he said this wasn't his doing. His traitorous mind had begun to wonder if, in fact, there was some other otherworldly force behind the appearance of the Blue Eyes. Or if some other person had snuck into the apartment in the middle of the night – confident in their ability to tease and toy, all with the unspoken threat that they could take away all the things Seto was doing his best to hold onto. He fumed as Jounouchi struggled to stuff the empty box back into the couch compartment.
But then Jounouchi grabbed his cell phone off the coffee table, and snuck into the kitchen. He squatted in the corner of the room, as he plugged numbers into the phone. He covered his mouth and receiver with his hand and as he spoke into the mike, trying to make sure he wasn't discovered. He talked for a long time, almost a half-hour.
Seto hacked the phone database afterwards. Confirmed that the call was to Mokuba. It was recorded, as all of Mokuba's calls were, and Seto listened to them discuss their conspiracy, and Seto's health and sleeping habits, and how this whole thing seemed to be cheering him up. And, then, they started talking about their own things, their own lives – Mokuba's time at university, and the trouble he was having with some girl, and Jounouchi's work, and- And Seto wasn't sure what to do about any of it.
But, even before that, he watched the footage of Jounouchi wrap up his phone call, and grab the third Blue Eyes toy off the couch, and sneak back into the bedroom.
Seto was sleeping fitfully in the video, and he reached out for the Blue Eyes toy even before Jounouchi could hand it over. Jounouchi slid under the sheets, and covered his smile with his hand as he handed the toy over. And Seto grabbed it greedily and huddled closer to where Jounouchi was sitting on the bed. And then the smile faded off Jounouchi's face, and he turned a hand gently over Seto's hair and leaned down to kiss his brow.
And there was something about the emotion captured in Jounouchi's eyes. And Seto wasn't sure what to call it. But, without any reason at all, he became intuitively convinced he knew what it felt like. And Seto watched Jounouchi cuddle against the Blue Eyes, and into his chest, and fall back asleep.
And, for some unfathomable reason, Seto found himself incapable of being angry about this any longer.
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Jounouchi grumbled to himself when he woke up. It seemed like Kaiba had already gotten up, which wasn't really that strange, but he let out a whine of protest anyhow as he squirmed in the pile of white sheets and navy blankets. But then he turned his head into something unexpected.
Jounouchi sat up and blinked.
"Well, I'll be damned-" he muttered to himself, gathering it up in his arms.
Kaiba was in the kitchen when he wandered out. He'd made himself coffee, but none for Jounouchi of course.
Selfish bastard, Jounouchi thought. But the thought didn't come to him as harshly as it usually would have.
"Look who showed up in the middle of the night!" Jounouchi beamed. He held the Red Eyes Black Dragon plush, above his head with one hand, and scratched at his scalp with the other – ruffling his already messy hair. He wasn't wearing boxers, and his nightshirt stretched above his abs.
Kaiba didn't pretend he wasn't enjoying the show. He raised a pair of eyebrows and sipped imperiously at his coffee before looking up to the Red Eyes.
"How strange," he said.
Jounouchi huffed. He waved the Red Eyes toy around, imitating it with growls and Fire Blast! Destroy that no-good villain!
Kaiba grimaced disdainfully, and Jounouchi took pity on him and sat down at the counter.
"And I'm sure you had nothing to do with it," Jounouchi prodded suspiciously.
"Hn," Kaiba grunted. "I don't know where it's from. It was here when I woke up," he said vaguely.
Jounouchi snorted.
Kaiba frowned. "I can't be held responsible for the random things that happen around this apartment."
"Yea- Yea-" Jounouchi grinned. "You know, kamisama sent you three Blue Eyes," he said. "Do you think that means I've got more stuff coming, eh? It'd be really nice for Mai's sake if I got a Harpy Lady and her two sisters."
"This is an act of God now?" Kaiba snorted. "And are you making requests?"
Jounouchi smiled. "I know you think you're clever, rich boy," he accused, "but you're not really."
Seto begged off soon after that. But, perhaps, it was telling that Jounouchi pressed a wet kiss to his cheek before he left.
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