Ashes doesn't own Yu-Gi-Oh!


Chapter Three

When Kaiba found Jounouchi he wasn't hiding in Tragedy's End's corner booth. He was right at the bar, between a pretty girl who looked too young to be there and an older man who looked as though he was in mourning. Every now and then Jounouchi turned to the man and made a comment, but mostly he kept a conversation with the girl, who laughed often enough.

Kaiba waited until she left with another girl before approaching Jounouchi – he knew damn well it was going to be ugly. He could tell by the look on her face that even the bartender knew. Kaiba and Jounouchi had gotten into enough scuffles in this place for them to at least be recognized. Kaiba sat down, ignoring the scathing look he received from the barkeep. She didn't understood how Kaiba felt. Hell, Kaiba couldn't even entirely understand it, but no matter how angry Jounouchi made him, no matter how hard they fought, Kaiba wasn't going to let Jounouchi go down without a fight. When he'd signed that contract he'd taken Jounouchi's weight onto his shoulders, and like it or not he refused to let anything else take Jounouchi down.

Neither of them had anything to lose; they might as well fight together – even if it was against each other.

"Need anything?" the woman asked when Kaiba didn't leave, crossing her arms over her small chest. She had the build of a grade-schooler, but a face that suggested her demeanor was anything but. She huffed when Kaiba nodded to Jounouchi, but left them for another pair a couple of seats away.

"Dad had a poker game," Jounouchi grumbled, leaning down onto his elbows; his hair covered his eyes. "Didn't wanna see you either."

"You should know by now that I don't care why you do what you do." Kaiba leaned forward and attempted to slide Jounouchi's drink away from him; slender fingers wrapped around the glass in protest, keeping it in place. Kaiba gritted his teeth and added, "Yuugi asked me to find you."

"And since when do you care about Yuugi or me?"

"I care about appearances," Kaiba said calmly, much more so than he felt. "I told Yuugi I'd call when I found you, and I'd rather not tell him I found you trying to drown whatever sorrows you think you have. Besides, the bar at the mansion isn't going to drain you pocketbook."

"Ha! As though that's a problem anymore, thanks to you." Still, Jounouchi seemed to consider it, then let his head bow a little further, staring into the amber liquid in his glass. He sighed. "I didn't want to see you."

"You said that already."

Jounouchi's sigh was almost loud enough to fill the room, but no one except Kaiba paid him any mind. He paid the bartender, who said a quiet goodbye. "Yeah, okay," Jounouchi said.

---

He got Jounouchi home without any trouble; the blond even called Yuugi and managed to sound like nothing was wrong. It had to be some sort of miracle – everything was wrong. Kaiba watched Jounouchi hang up his cell phone and sink back into the chair, his eyes firmly closed; everything about his posture said he was getting ready to say something, and Kaiba didn't know what to prepare for. At a loss, he took a seat at his desk – and waited.

"I haven't told anyone," Jounouchi said softly, then a little firmer, "not Honda, not Anzu, not even Yuugi; no one in Domino but you knows what I've... what I'm really like." The blond shifted in his chair, throwing his legs up over the arm and resting his head against the opposite side. His eyes opened lazily, but he didn't look as though he was entirely gone. "So what keeps you from blabbing? It's not like Yuugi would tell the press, and wouldn't it make you feel damned righteous to tell Yuugi once and for all how bad his judgment is?"

Kaiba didn't take the bait; he knew exactly what kind of mind game Jounouchi was playing; he'd probably picked it up from the best. "I'm not going to make it any easier on you by spreading your bad news – your problems are just that, yours. I'll have no part of them."

"Except when you use them to your advantage."

"Yes." Jounouchi's mouth formed a clear line as Kaiba went for the kill; he didn't pull punches. "I used your weakness against you, and I won; now you have enough money to keep clothes on your back, food in your stomach, and a sufficient buzz so you can avoid the realization that while you're drowning in your self-inflicted misery, the world is moving on without you. I always knew you were a has-been, even while you were pretending you were something. You should be happy people even know your name anymore."

"You're fucked up," Jounouchi hissed, "and you do nothing but fuck me up with you. It's like you've got to be damaging someone or you don't know what the hell do with yourself. I'm surprised Mokuba made it out in one piece."

Kaiba didn't take that bait either; he balled his fists and waited it out. It was wrong that they were together. They were both deficient enough on their own; it wasn't like they needed to bear the weight of each other as well. And it was wrong that Kaiba was even bothered by Jounouchi's obvious barbs – he should have been able to handle Jounouchi's ups and downs without actually be affected by them. After so much exposure, it as wrong that Kaiba hadn't desensitized himself from the anger the way he had everything else.

The desk drawer snapped against its rails as Kaiba yanked it open to retrieve the half-empty bottle of aspirin, in hopes that it would soothe the throbbing in his temples.

"That shit'll kill your liver, y'know."

Kaiba waited as long to reply as it took him to toss his head back and take the pills dry; he couldn't resist a smirk at Jounouchi. He really had no fucking clue sometimes. "Like you're one to talk."

"That doesn't mean you should do it," Jounouchi retorted, moving out of his position without any sense of grace or even proportion of his legs; his feet hit the floor with an awkward and loud thump. He sat up straight though, and then leaned a little bit forward, like he was trying to lean closer to Kaiba. "It should make me an authority on self-destruction."

From whining to a sick sense of pride; it really was strange the way Jounouchi switched speeds as quickly as it would take if he thought he could be a step ahead of Kaiba. "While I'm glad you take your problems so seriously, you're far from an expert when it comes to that."

"Don't twist the idea! The point is that I don't… Ah, I don't – "

" – actually know what you're talking about, so drop it. I'm not your concern," Kaiba told him firmly.

"Fuck you, Kaiba!" Jounouchi leaned forward and pointed at Kaiba while he spoke. "You're too smart to do something stupid like depend on – "

"It's a painkiller," Kaiba snapped, pushing himself to his feet; Jounouchi responded in kind, even if not so steadily. It was interesting, this defiant streak Jounouchi was showing. Typically all getting drunk in the mansion meant was that they'd end up in bed, because Jounouchi couldn't resist sex when he was drunk. The vague promise of something new was intriguing. "If I have a headache, I take care of it. As soon as I remove the source, it's no longer a problem."

"That's called suicide."

"I prefer to call it 'Jounouchi.' It's far from a problem, and you're in no position to lecture me about being dependent."

For a drunk guy Jounouchi threw a punch with an amazing sense of balance, his fist hitting it's mark dead on. The wave of pain through Kaiba's gut had been expected, but that didn't make it welcome. He returned in kind, shoving Jounouchi to the ground without hesitation, without regard as the blond's head thumped against the carpet. Kaiba paused just as he brought a fist back, stuck just for a second on the brown eyes that looked up, completely level to his own – not even a bit of fear or worry in them. It reminded him just how tough Jounouchi was; no one after Yuugi had been so good at keeping him on his toes, creeping under his skin. Just the idea made him itch.

The fist came down against the carpet, muffled, and Kaiba leaned down close with it, almost nose to nose with Jounouchi. The blond raised an eyebrow, and then tilted his chin up just enough, his lips barely brushing Kaiba's. The motion made Kaiba smirk – less because of what it meant, and more because Jounouchi's eyes stayed open as though he expected Kaiba to be tricking him, or perhaps looking for a moment of weakness.

Kaiba wondered if Jounouchi knew he lost right then. Even when Jounouchi was trying to take him by surprise, in the end he was always the same. Once the anger wore off, Jounouchi just little more than a drunk teenage boy. "We need to work on your definition of hate."

"Hate is hate is hate," Jounouchi ground out, "but this is a job." He shoved Kaiba up, slithering from underneath him and sitting up, rubbing the back of his head. "We can't be out in public looking how we feel. Most people don't see the romance in a matching set of black eyes." Still, Jounouchi lashed a foot out, kicking Kaiba hard in the spine as the brunet made a move to stand. "Quit movin', I'm talking to you." Jounouchi leaned closer, palms flat on the ground so he could get close enough to whisper in Kaiba's ear. "People want to see soft, want cheesy little pecks on the cheek, gentle and happy. Funny, huh?" His tongue moved slowly over Kaiba's earlobe.

"Why?" Kaiba asked, his fingers trailing up Jounouchi's arm. Jounouchi didn't answer, moving further down, tongue making the trail across Kaiba's neck, lower set of teeth pressing the skin here and there.

"Because while we pretend we're the cutest gay couple in Japan, we're really fighting to see which one of us is going to snap first. Will I rip you out at the throat, or will you bury me like the bad news I am?" Kaiba's hand found a painful grip in Jounouchi's hair as Jounouchi's teeth dug into his shoulder, the blond moving closer, practically atop him. "We spend all this time feeling each other out, getting deeper and deeper into it – and we don't know when it'll break, only that it will."

Jounouchi stood, surprisingly steady as he went for the phone on Kaiba's desk. After pressing one button – eight, the number to call the maids – he said, "Elena, could you bring some sake up to the office; I'm feeling traditional." After hanging up, Jounouchi wound around the desk, tripping once, and took a seat in Kaiba's chair. "Let's enjoy each other's company tonight, Kaiba."

Standing, Kaiba asked, "Because you want my guard down?" He took the seat that Jounouchi had evacuated, and the change in perspectives was dizzying. All the confidence Jounouchi had been teeming with seemed to fade at once, leaving Jounouchi looking tired and Kaiba feeling disappointed. There was nothing like fighting Jounouchi when he was at his best.

"Just once I'd like to pretend we're not enemies."

Kaiba had no response to that other than to sit silently and wait for their drinks. It did well to remind himself that he'd tricked Jounouchi here in the first place; much as he hated it, he'd brought the whole thing on himself. In this game of deceit, the least he could offer Jounouchi in reparations was to spend one night off the offensive.

-end chapter three-


notes
Oh my god, I hate this chapter. --;;; Seriously, it's horrid, because I think the plot of the story takes over pretty quickly, so I suddenly realized, "oh shit, this needs emotional development or the plot falls apart!" And I did what fits into the story, but it seems so wrong. T.T So it now bears the question -- is the entire story off? I really do enjoy it, though. Keep me posted on what's wrong with it! A short note on this Elena character -- completely unrelated to the plot, just there to bring up the /sake/. I really dig the spelling "Helena" when pronounced as "Elena" in Japanese (though I'm pretty sure Elena isn't a Japanese name), so I thought I'd given random maid #45 a name for Jounouchi to know. ;