Shipping: Kamishipping – Seto Kaiba x Jounouchi Katsuya x Yami no Yugi
Little Gifts
10) Mistletoe
Kaiba's work for the day was done – at least, his work at KaibaCorp. There was still some more typing he could do, but he knew he could get that done easily enough at home – even if the three other members of his household were determined to hold a Christmas party that night, and invite all their 'friends'. Surely he could get finished before then..?
And so, Kaiba had arrived home, breezing through to the living room, following the sounds of laughter and sword-fighting that had echoed at him from the moment he'd set foot inside the Kaiba manor. He'd fully expected to see at least one of his lovers and his little brother, no doubt playing around with some gaming console or other. What he hadn't expected, however, was to see them through a haze of green stuff hanging down from the door's uppermost lintel, dangling at the most opportune height to hit him smack in the face.
"What is this?" Distastefully, Kaiba took a step back from the hanging plant that had attacked him, staring at it with more than a little dislike.
Yami didn't even bother to look up from the screen the game he was playing with Mokuba was on, artfully brandishing his right hand as a sword – it seemed the two were playing with their wiis? "Mistletoe."
"I can see that." Kaiba ducked under the named plant, a little pissy the other hadn't even glanced up to greet him. "I mean, what's it doing here?"
A shrug, Yami raising his left arm – his shield? – to block some incoming attack of some weird…blob-thing of a monster. "See Jou. He's the one attacking any bit of free space with greenery. He' strung all our bedrooms with mistletoe and ivy."
"Oh…that's -" a thought suddenly hit Kaiba, "even Mokuba's?"
"Mine?" Mokuba paused the game, not quite as good at multi-tasking as Yami, looking up at his older brother. Yami, following his cue, did the same. "I've only got holly in my room, nii-san. Jou was gonna stick some ivy in there too, but Yami said you might not like that, going by ivy's associations an' all..." A slightly dry tone entered the teen's voice. "The leaves for love and drunkenness were perfectly fine for your bedrooms though."
Yami smothered a laugh as blue eyes turned to glare at him. "You condoned this madness?"
The former pharaoh smiled innocently at his lover, twirling his wii's nunchuck absent-mindedly with one hand. "Truthfully, I find it rather sweet."
"'Sweet'?" A twitch.
"Yes, sweet." Yami repeated the dreaded word. "Jou's put a lot of hard work into his decorating, and it shows."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why's he decorating everywhere with plants?" Kaiba finally put his silver briefcase down; making a sweeping gesture around him to the room he could now see was covered in intricately woven branches of holly, rowan, mistletoe and ivy.
"To make everything look nice for winter…?" Yami's words were more of a question than a statement, the fiery youth only shrugging once more when his taller boyfriend glowered at him for such a vague, unsatisfying answer. "Don't ask me; I don't get this Christmas thing the rest of you are so fascinated with…"
"It's traditional, Yami." Mokuba leapt in with an answer. "It's…didn't you used to celebrate your gods' birthdays back in Egypt? Well…Christmas is the celebration of the Christian God's birth – only, it's become such a widespread, general thing most people celebrate it now, even if they're atheist, or of another religious denomination."
"And…the mistletoe…?"
"More tradition. Some plants have certain meanings attached to them and mistletoe…" Mokuba trailed off with a laugh. "I'm surprised Jou-chan hasn't shown you, yet. I'm sure he would, if you asked. Or Seto."
"What…?" Yami turned to the brunette with an inquiring gaze.
"…I'll tell you later." Kaiba gave his brother a meaningful glare when Mokuba smirked knowingly at him, the younger boy only laughing again and quickly unpausing his game to steal Yami's attention away from the subject of mistletoe, and back to monster-slaying.
A little frustrated Yami frowned after Kaiba's departing back – the other had made a speedy escape out of the room and no doubt up to his study -, but bowed to Mokuba's silent request and resumed set about kicking monster-butt with the best of his wii-brandishing abilities.
Jounouchi Katsuya was, to put it mildly, more than a little drunk. He'd lost count of the amount of mulled wine he'd gone through, not to mention the punch a certain albino thief had spiked after swiping some vodka from Kaiba's spirit cupboard – and the cupboard had been locked, mind you. Locked. As in sealed with a keypad – Kaiba had encountered Yugi-tachi's sneaky ways when confronted with alcohol before –, 'three locks and a big shiny brand new friggin' padlock' locked. (Kaiba swore he was going to wring Bakura's neck one day for going through his alcohol defences – and the alcohol itself – so quickly. Wring his neck, smash his head in (especially if he kept trying to chat up Yami when both of them were somewhat inebriated), choke the life out of him and then bury him six feet under where the worms could eat at his rotting flesh. And then maybe hire him for KaibaCorp. The ass knew how to disable a good defence so; theoretically, he should be able to build one too. The job was his (and his death would be long, slow and painful if he so much as glanced at Yami in a way Kaiba didn't like). Yes. That would be good.)
But back to Jounouchi. Somewhat drunk he was more than happy to bask in the praise for his decorating skills, sticking his tongue out at Kaiba when the other muttered something – most likely derogative – about 'bloody plants' and 'irritating lovers he wasn't sure why the hell he kept'. For once, Jou had shrugged the mutters off, merely petting the other on the head as he went past and receiving a swift kiss in return. Erk…Seto was being sociable of his own free will? The world was gonna end.
Yami had finally caught on about the mistletoe. Catching sight of what looked like Marik about to kiss Mokuba on under some sprig or other the pharaoh had hurried over, pushing Mokuba gently out of the way despite the teen's protests. If Kaiba saw his little brother being kissed he'd most likely blow the roof, and Yami had no desire for the Christmas party to end on such a bad note. The only problem with pushing Mokuba out of the way though, was that he got kissed instead.
Withdrawing sharply from the – thankfully chaste - kiss Yami was bout to blast Marik's head off – only to be met with the other's careful smile, a warm hand laying steadyingly on his shoulder. "Relax, Pharaoh. Don't you know it's traditional to kiss under the mistletoe?"
"It…it is?" A blink, Yami taken by surprise, his anger (and the golden eye that had momentarily flashed upon his forehead) dying down.
"Uh-huh." Marik pointed about the room, to where other couples occasionally pecked each other on the cheek or lips. Only the more established couples were full-on making out and –
"Oh." Yami coloured. "Sorry."
"Nah, don't worry about it." Marik flapped his apology away. "Just…go have some fun." He ginned lightly. "Go…'punish' your boyfriends for not informing you about mistletoe earlier on. I need to find my rat of a boyfriend."
"He's um…I think I saw him in the kitchen before…" Yami watched, still a little embarrassed, as Marik sped off to retrieve Bakura from whatever stupid act alcohol had prompted him to do this time around. The party swung on around him. Seto passed by. "Hey." He reached out, snagging the other's arm. Blue eyes looked at him. "I found out about mistletoe."
"Oh?" Kaiba smiled suddenly, drawing a little closer, so that he could enfold the other in his arms. "What about it?"
Yami smiled back at him, reaching up as if to kiss him – and pointedly stopping short, inches from the brunet's lips. "I'll tell you later." He extracted himself from Kaiba's arms, laughing teasingly at the other's frustrated expression.
"Yami-"
"Later." Cheerfully, Yami sashayed across the room, plonked himself deliberately in Jounouchi's lap just to further irritate Kaiba, and proceeded to have a good time. The blonde quickly cottoned on to what he was doing, and for the nth time Kaiba cursed his lovers' existences.
He made sure to put all the ivy and mistletoe in their bedrooms to good use later that night.