Chapter 7 – When the Going Gets Tough...

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The big question is... who will kill Joey first? Kaiba or Tristan? Tristan???! What are Yugi and Yami so engrossed about when they're talking? And why is Mokuba sneaking into the kitchen all by himself? What's he got in his pocket anyways? Will they ever get any decorating done or will it all be a disaster? And then, there's dinner...hehehe!

Stay tuned to find out... in this and the few remaining chapters to go.

And thanks for the 66 awesome reviews that I've gotten. I like reviews. They make me happy and make me write faster (hint, hint). I'm glad that you like this story so far.

Round 3 is about to start. The plot thickens.

Meanwhile, in the living room...

No one had really noticed that Kaiba and Téa had slipped off to the kitchen already to get coffee, except Mokuba, as they were too busy still trying to get the tree to stand up straight in the stand. Joey was still valiantly battling to tighten the six screws that would hold the tree in place. Tristan, as mentioned before, was still complaining about the pricks from the needles he was getting. Yugi just sighed and turned his attention inwards, hoping to continue to talk to Yami about the necklace he had seen around Téa's neck.

'Yami, so what do you think? Who gave Téa that necklace? I know I didn't and I know you didn't so who could it have been? If it was Joey or Tristan, they would've told me about it...' Yugi asked, seeing the shadow of the Spirit materialize next to him. Yami wore a look of intense concentration, his hand cupping his chin and his eyes closed. Then he sighed.

'I do not know, Yugi. You have asked me that question at least a hundred times since we walked in the door and I am no closer to finding an answer than you are,' Yami replied, his amethyst eyes opening to regard the young one whose body he shared.

'Do you think maybe... Kaiba... gave it to her? I mean she somehow managed to talk him into coming here and Kaiba never joins us voluntarily, and then she smiled at him like that and he was leaning so close to her just now. Heck, he almost smiled at her and for Kaiba, that's a big thing...' His mind voice trailed off and he looked up again at the Spirit, hoping to see something there that would relieve his fears. Maybe Téa was somehow... involved with Kaiba which would ruin his own chances of asking her out. He'd had a crush on her for so long... at least the last three years or so but with everything that had happened to them, first Pegasus and Duellist Kingdom, second a virtual game where they'd had to rescue Kaiba, then Kaiba's Battle City where Marik tried to take over the world, that crazy virtual world with Noah, and finally Anubis, he hadn't had a chance to express how he felt to her. Didn't even know if he would have the courage to do it, should the opportunity ever present itself. Being terrified of rejection wasn't helping him either.

'As I stated before, young one, I do not know. The only sure way to find the answer would be to ask her,' Yami replied, his mind voice sounding slightly annoyed, his shadow form dissolving again and returning to the puzzle, 'And I will not be the one doing the asking.'

At that, Yugi chuckled silently, knowing the Spirit heard him. Sure enough, he heard a door slam in his mind as Yami went back to his soul room. There would be no help from him since he couldn't get two words out right in Téa's presence. And it made Yami mad to no end to know that he could conquer the worst baddies this side of the Shadow Realm and yet couldn't talk to a girl without getting tongue-tied. The only thing Yugi could do was hold onto the tree and hope that he got a moment alone with Téa sometime tonight.

"Dis is gonna be so much fun tonight, Tristan. I get t' pick on Kaiba, for a change, 'n' he has t' behave. Téa said so." Joey's muffled voice came from under the tree again.

"But you gotta be nice, too, Joey, or Téa will kick you out. She said that too, remember?" Tristan replied, deciding to hold the tree up by the rope instead of getting pricked anymore. He should have thought of that in the first place but that girl at the tree stand had a really nice smile. And he'd just been on the verge of trying to get her phone number when Joey had butted in.

"Nice, schmice. She won't kick me out..." Joey started, sounding quite confident, before Yugi interrupted.

"Remember Téa's barbecue over the summer, Joey? The one where you ate 17 hamburgers and then threw up in her mother's rosebushes? You weren't allowed here for a month after that. And it wasn't her parents who banned you..." Yugi stated, watching Tristan try to keep from bursting out laughing at the memory, and being unable to keep the mirth out of his tone. Even Yami snickered from the depths of his room in Yugi's mind.

Flashback – earlier in the summer...

"Joey, that's like your fifteenth burger. Are you sure you can handle that much food at one sitting? I know you're a bottomless pit but that seems a little much, even for you," Téa commented, taking a sip of her lemon iced tea and looking up at the blue sky. What a beautiful day, she thought, nothing, absolutely nothing, could spoil it.

"Seventeenth actually," Joey replied, piling on hot peppers, mustard, ketchup, onions and relish on the round meat patty in front of him. His stomach protested at the first bite, but Joey ignored it. The burgers were the best he'd ever had before. Téa really knew how to run a barbecue.

"You're gonna make yourself sick, Joey," Tristan said, not realizing how prophetic his words were going to be. The sun beat down on them from above as they sat at the picnic table in Téa's backyard.

"That's not a healthy way to eat. Tristan's right – you're going to get sick," Yugi added, his big amethyst eyes showing concern for the tall blonde boy. Joey loved to eat but at this point, it was just getting disgusting.

Joey made a show of taking a huge bite of the burger, ketchup and mustard squirting out the end of it, making a beautiful red and yellow stain amidst the green grass. It was at the moment he swallowed that bite that his stomach decided it couldn't take anymore. A growling sound erupted from his middle region and his face turned a fascinating shade of green.

"I don't feel so good," Joey mumbled, feeling his stomach start to churn faster and faster.

What went down...

Running quickly away from the table, Joey fell to his knees by Téa's mother's prize rosebushes, groaning at the pains spreading from his stomach through his chest.

...must come up.

And it did, all over the beautiful rosebushes that Téa lovingly trimmed and watered every week to promote perfect growth.

"Oh, Joey, not in the roses!" Téa shrieked, her normally sweet voice turning angry at the mess she saw happening. Too late. Joey sat back on his haunches and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Looking over at his distraught friends, he grinned sheepishly.

"Sorry 'bout dat, Téa..." Joey started to say before Téa interrupted him.

"That's it, Joey. Get out. We warned you..." Needless to say, she was pissed. Her perfect day was absolutely spoiled now. Joey backed away from her fearfully. He'd never seen her this mad before.........

End flashback – back to the present...

"Oh, yeah. Forgot 'bout dat," Joey said, his voice a little less gleeful and his eyes a little more downcast. And it had been a good party up until that point. Too bad that Téa had really liked those rosebushes, since they had died a week later.

Mokuba, bored with looking out the window and unable to put his plan into action yet, wandered over from the window towards the three older boys. "Do you guys need some help with the tree. It seems to be taking you a long time to do up a few screws," Mokuba asked, finding the need for something to do besides stare out the window. The sugar rush was about to kick in from the chocolate bar that he'd eaten on the way here. He had seen Seto and Téa walk into the kitchen together and it really made him wonder if there was something else going on besides the business of checking on dinner and getting coffees ready. The thought filled him with glee. The chocolate was already having some effect on him and he started to grin, one would say almost maniacally.

His big brother thought he didn't know the 'real' reason he'd come here to see Téa. It wasn't just a 'Thank-you'. That was an excuse. The look he'd seen in Seto's eyes, and the faintest blush on his cheeks when he'd asked Mokuba if he wanted to go to a Christmas party, had betrayed him. Mokuba was quite adept at reading Seto's moods and thoughts just from a single look. And that look had said that Téa had caught his interest. And when something, or in this case someone, caught Seto's interest, he pursued it.

"We got it unda' control, Mokuba," Joey said, standing up and dusting off his hands and knees. The tree was finally upright and fairly stable. All that was left to do was unwrap the rope...

This, of course, was the exact moment when Seto and Téa walked back into the living room from the kitchen, holding steaming cups of coffee in their hands.

THWACK!!

...followed by...

"OW!! JOEY!! WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?" Tristan hollered at the top of his lungs, his needle pricked hand flying up to his nose, a nose now laced with bright red scratches from the limb that had unexpectedly popped out and slammed into Tristan's face. Yugi was jerked to awareness and hurriedly stepped between the two boys. An almost comical, murderous rage filled Tristan's eyes and he looked ready, willing and very able to pummel Joey into a pulp.

"Sorry, Tristan. It was an accident..." Joey started to say as he backed away. Tristan was walking forward, step by menacing step, with Yugi vainly trying to hold the older and heavier boy back by the arm.

"Accident my..." Tristan growled loudly before Yugi, ever the peacemaker between the two, interrupted.

"Tristan, Joey, stop it. It was an accident. Don't do something you're going to regret later." Yugi's voice sounded a little desperate and Yami had emerged from his soul room, ready to jump in should his light need help keeping the two apart. Mokuba stood back, wide-eyed at the scene playing out before him. He wasn't stupid enough to get between those two but he couldn't keep the grin off his face, either. Something to do with chocolate. And the possibility of seeing blood...

"He's just jealous cuz the girl at the tree stand liked me better than him!!" Tristan's face was bright red by this point and Joey was putting on his best disarming smile, even as he was still backing away.

"Hmm, maybe the girl had some sense. After all, who wouldn't prefer a retriever to a mutt," Seto said quietly, damning his mouth the minute the words left it. If Téa's looks could kill, Seto would be 6 feet under in record time. At least Wheeler and his friend hadn't heard him or who knew what kind of chaos would have really erupted. Three-ring circus, probably. He took a sip of the steaming liquid, trying to keep his mouth occupied.

"What are you talking about, Tris? What girl at the tree stand?" Joey was backing up fast now, the murderous rage he saw in his friend's eyes actually scaring him almost as badly as when Téa had yelled at him at the barbecue. Unfortunately, Joey couldn't see behind himself and apparently didn't realize how close he was to the snack-laden coffee table.

CRASH!! BANG!! SMASH!!

SPLAT!!

"What the..." Joey started, looking up at the ceiling and wondering, for all the world, why he was looking at it in the first place. The pain in his back should have told him, since he'd crashed backwards over the coffee table and landed right in the middle of the vegetables that Kaiba had just chopped that afternoon.

The whole scene was just too much for everyone, even Tristan, to handle. A moment of silence filled the air except for the wet splat of falling slices of tomatoes to the carpet below before being completely shattered by peals of laughter.

"Hey, I coulda been seriously hurt..." Joey started before realizing that the situation had stopped Tristan in his tracks. A grin broke out over Joey's face and his hand reached up to scratch his head, making a precariously balanced slice of pepper fall to the floor to join its tomato comrades.

"It's... payback for... the tree limb...you... goofball," Tristan somehow managed to say between spurts of laughter. He was holding his sides to keep from laughing too hard at his best friend as he tried to sit up before his hand slipped on a carrot and down he went again. Groan.

"At least we know he can roll over. Now can he play dead?" Seto murmured to no one in particular, trying to keep his voice low pitched. Even Téa couldn't fault him for that one. Joey did look highly amusing in the middle of slices of green pepper, cucumber, celery, carrots, tomatoes and broccoli. At least he'd still been wearing his coat so his clothes weren't filthy since Téa was pretty sure she had nothing in her closet that would fit him.

"Joey, you've had worse falls off your bike riding to school. This one was just funnier than most," Yugi said, giggling delightedly, hearing Yami laugh inside his soul room, as he watched through his light's eyes.

Tristan walked over, still laughing, and offered Joey a hand up, which he accepted gratefully since his second attempt at extricating himself had been foiled by a piece of cucumber, sending yet more vegetables splatting to the floor. Once he was upright, he took off his vegetable encrusted coat and rolled it up into a ball. Tristan and Yugi followed suit and took off their coats, which they promptly threw at Joey. That renewed the giggles around the room. Even Seto was smiling, if that thin-lipped line could be called a smile. Téa glanced up at him and saw the laughter dancing in his eyes. Hmm, maybe he really wasn't an ice-god after all.

"Umm, Téa? Ya gotta broom or sumpthin' dat I can use t' clean dis up wit'?" Joey asked sheepishly. He hated being made a fool of in front of Kaiba, but so far he hadn't said anything at all. Not that he'd heard anyways.

"Yeah, sure. In the hall closet, upstairs. Help yourself, Joey." She couldn't stop snickering as he walked passed her, dropping the collection of coats off on the banister, and headed up the stairs since he still had some celery stuck in that blonde mop of his.

"Well, let's leave Joey to the cleaning up of this mess and start decorating the tree," Téa announced, moving towards the couch where the boxes of decorations were stashed beside it. Joey's klutziness was legendary and she'd been prepared for anything. Almost anyways.

No one noticed Mokuba inching towards the kitchen, holding his hand over his jeans pocket as if his life depended on it. Somehow, he avoided Seto's radar and slipped quietly into the kitchen, pulling his surprise out of his pocket. Now all he needed was a chair and a couple minutes alone and the stage would be set.

Yes, the grin he was sporting was truly maniacal.

-Round 3 complete-

Hope you enjoyed this little slice of the whole. What's next on the agenda?? Well, chapter 8 should reveal what Mokuba has been hiding. It might even reveal to everyone what's really going on between Seto and Téa. Maybe. Might save that til a later chapter. It has to happen sooner or later. Depends on how evil I'm feeling when I start writing.

And I usually feel really evil!!

PS: I'll give you a cookie if you can figure out what Mokuba has in his pocket.

Aphrael21 ;)