Labels shonen-ai hints; OOC; death and murder; usage of poison; some profanity; drabble; oneshot; pg13
[beforehand]
It's a bit suffocating. You read your own fiction and deem it "all right," then read someone else's and find that yours sucks. Badly. I pale in comparison to rayemars.
Part Four, but technically Part Three-and-a-Half, because it goes in between "White."
--
Hit and Run
--
It's January.
Well, it's closer to February, since January's coming to an end soon, but that isn't the point. Besides, it's more like July when you're drinking your sorrows away, and the tavern's so noisy with laughing and gossip and chattering that whenever the door opens, hot air comes rushing at the entering chill and pushes it back so that it's plenty warm in the room when the door closes.
It's supposed to be real exciting, and it's nice having hot chicks draping themselves all over you, but Keith gets bored most of the time anyway. He's no man of comfort; besides, it's rather hard to get turned on when the whole fucking room's like a desert.
But he's found new ways to entertain himself.
Now that chaos has broken over the city (and more possibly the world), the crime rate's gone up and Keith finds that dealing poison isn't as hard as it used to be. The bartender always sets the glasses on a turning table before he pours equal amounts of beer or wine or whatever; barmaids will usually deliver the order before plopping themselves upon whoever's lap and flirt until they're both as drunk as pigeons. Keith's disappointed, because it's surprisingly easy to dust in the powder without anyone noticing.
It kind of reminds him of Russian Roulette: sit and wait until someone drops dead.
After a while, it happens so often that no one seems to care anymore. In fact, Keith thinks that they find it amusing. Usually, another customer will poke the corpse to see if it's alive before shouting: "Hey, here's another! Poor sucker probably choose the wrong glass!"
Everyone snorts in laughter, and the bartender smirks and thanks the heavens for free pocket change.
After midnight, the body is thrown in the alley and burnt to a crisp. Sometimes the bones don't melt, but no one disposes of them, and they're left for the dogs to chew on. They're grimy and chipped and white, like the snow.
It's January.
When Jounouchi walks in, he's covered with snow. Of course, because he obviously hasn't been rolling around on the ground, it's pure and white and solid, not like the bones. But it doesn't really matter. It's just snow.
The flakes immediately melt when he enters the room, and Jounouchi ends up having to sit with sopping wet clothes and dripping bangs. He looks kind of dazed, so it's no surprise when he just seats himself on the first available object.
It's no surprise when he just seats himself on the stool next to Keith.
Keith doesn't say anything. He's just surprised that blondie hasn't been killed yet, considering that he's part of Yuugi "I'm a little angel" Mutou's little bunch of party-poopers. But it really doesn't matter, so Keith just shrugs to himself and takes another drag of his cigarette, breathing smoke into the air.
"Smoking isn't good for you."
Huh. Looks like the little fucker wants to talk.
All he does is take another puff, emphasizing his point. "So? What's it to you?"
Jounouchi gives him a blank look and shakes his head slightly, sending water onto the counter. "Nothing."
Background noise fills the air in between them, but all Keith can hear is silence. Finally, it starts to unnerve him so he waves a barmaid over and orders two beers. She flutters her eyebrows at him before setting down the order, then looks to the left and spots Jounouchi. When she coos over him, going "oh, what a cutie," Keith dismisses her, gesturing to another table. She huffs indignantly but stalks away, muttering "why are all the cute ones gay?"
Keith pretends he didn't hear that.
Instead, he pushes one glass over to Jounouchi, before setting aside his own for later.
There's a pause, then – "I don't drink."
Keith rolls his eyes and Jounouchi can see that they're blue (like Kaiba's, only lighter) because Keith's disposed of his sunglasses a long time ago. The bandana's still there though.
"Kid, you came to a bar and you don't want to drink yourself stupid? Besides, we're talking civilly even though we hate each other. It's a strange day for strange things, and you're going to die sooner or later so you might as well get drunk."
Jounouchi snorts, but reaches up to grab the glass anyway; placing the other hand on the counter, he stares morosely down at brown foam before taking it in one gulp. Keith's a bit surprised, at both things. One, that Jounouchi can down a shot so quickly, and two, that his wrist is in a sling. Huh. The idiot must've broken it in his battle against the dark side or something.
There's a coughing sound, and Keith turns to see Jounouchi hack up some of the stuff. He raises an eyebrow. "You going to choke to death if you keep doing that, and rest assured, I'm not planning to save you."
He thinks that Jounouchi will make some witty, yet stupid, retort. Instead, all the blonde does is give him an idiotic looking grin.
"Yeah, I guess so."
Keith decides, very firmly, that Jounouchi can't hold his alcoholic drinks very well.
But he thinks about it anyway.
It's January.
After Jounouchi leaves (rather, stumbles out into the newfound blizzard), Keith finds that it's rather lonely with no one to talk to, even if his companion had been a choking blond halfwit. Grumbling at these inane thoughts, he reaches for his glass and stubbornly downs it, like Jounouchi (only he doesn't hurl it back out).
There's a burning sensation rippling down his throat when he's done.
Keith smirks. His head feels kind of fuzzy and the room's spinning slightly as he looks around.
When he rests his head against the table, he thinks that he should think about where the bar's going to get more bodies after this, or maybe how long he'll last until the poison finally does him in.
But all he can remember is Jounouchi's stupid smile.
Huh.
Jounouchi always did have all the luck.
fin.
[afterward]
Finished July 1st, 2004.
Written and modified in 69 minutes [one hour, 9 minutes].
1010 words.
Okay, the real ending. I had to improvise when I first posted on LJ. Last sentence still unnerves me, unless misura finds a way to change it so that it actually makes sense. I know that Schuldich-muse will comment on the 'rest' and 'rests' bit at the end xD changed it [edit: okay, maybe not]
"Thinks about it anyway" is from "Perfect World" by Chash; it's a fairly lovely story [as in, humourous and particularly romantic in a very, very vague way].
But before that, read rayemar's "Grass." Death works wonders.
endlog[5:33 pm]