Coffee and Cigarettes

A series of unconnected vignettes, starring the Yu Gi Oh cast and revolving around the eponymous items. Obviously, I don't own Yu Gi Oh, and I don't own Jim Jarmusch's wonderful film Coffee and Cigarettes... but it's a fabulous movie, so I do recommend it to you.

Scene Five: Mai, Weevil, Perfection

Mai Valentine sat at the table, her long legs crossed and stretching out from underneath it in their high purple boots. She was filing her nails. The afternoon sun was bravely making its way into the dim room, softly warm on her bare shoulders. Mai dimly sensed a presence hovering about her, but was so intent on getting the chip out of her index finger - without breaking it - that she didn't pay any attention... Until the presence landed in the form of Weevil Underwood.

He leaned forward and, with an old, steamed-up, glass pot of coffee, topped up her dainty cup.

She turned to stare at him with her indigo eyes. "I wish you hadn't done that. It was the perfect color and temperature."

"Uhzz... Sorry," he buzzed.

She looked him over once and smirked. His already disastrous fashion sense hadn't been improved by the white apron he was wearing. Mai picked up the cigarette she had left to smoulder in her ash tray and took a puff, before returning it to its groove. It had a band of purple lipstick imprinted from her mouth.

Weevil was still standing there, holding the coffee pot. He pushed up his glasses along his nose.

Mai raised an eyebrow. "Go and get me some more cream," she said in a dangerous tone of voice.

"Whatever my little queen bee commands," Weevil hissed, and scurried back behind the counter. He practically ran back to her with the small pitcher, and Mai quickly placed her hand over her cup. It clinked against its saucer in her haste.

"I'll do it," she said, giving him a look of disdain and taking the metal milk jug off him.

Weevil watched as she carefully poured a little of the cream into her white cup, and stirred it gently with her spoon. She set down the cream and picked up the sugar holder, cautiously spooning teaspoon of the brown granules in. Then Mai returned to the cream jug and continued to stir, little spoon clinking, as drop by drop her coffee returned to the consistency it had been before Weevil had infested it.

Mai turned to stare at him, staring at her, and glared. "Shoo," she threatened. In her head, she was singing the words to a nursery song she could barely remember... 'Shoo fly, don't bother me...'

Weevil frowned in response, shook his green hair out of his eyes and returned to the counter of the diner.

Mai continued to file her nails, perfecting the index nail finger and then moving on to the middle.

Weevil glared at her before she realised she was inadvertently giving him the finger from across the room. She shrugged and adjusted her position, fitting her legs under the table and turning away from him. Weevil sighed. He was bored. His job was boring. He stared around the otherwise empty diner, at the faded yellow walls, white formica tables, and cracked yellow leather on the chairs.

Since Yuugi Moto and Katsuya Jounouchi had hit the scene, he'd gone from being Domino's number one duellist to a total reject. And considering what an idiot Jounouchi was, that didn't bode well for him. Of course, he'd saved up his money from duelling - he was more of an ant than a grasshopper - but his parents had firmly commanded that he get a job so as not to fritter away his money on his butterfly collection.

They just didn't understand how important that was. It was important that things were the best they could be. Mai seemed to understand that.

She was perfecting her lovely hands. Every now and then she paused to pick up her cigarette and take a puff.

Then again, she probably wasn't much better off than he was. She wasn't as big a hit duellist as before... Though she was still the number one female duellist and still incredibly attractive... That had to count for something.

Maybe she needed more coffee. He flitted back over to her table.

In the same quick, protective gesture as before, Mai covered her cup with her hand. "I'm fine," she announced, staring into his slimey little eyes.

"You don't want any more coffee?" Weevil said, holding up the pot.

"NO," Mai said emphatically. She shook her blonde locks.

Weevil continued to stare.

Mai sighed. "Buzz off, Bug Boy."

Weevil hummed with irritation and walked back towards his the counter. "Loser," he mumbled.

A teaspoon hit him in the back of the head. He turned around and glared.

"Next time it will be my foot." Mai said, her purple eyes glinting.

Weevil sized up her heels. "...What?" he asked, innocently.

Mai turned back to her nails.

Author's Notes: Yeah. I don't know if some of you expected this to be funnier than it was... It didn't come out quite how I planned. For one thing, I wanted to work in a Mai/Jou reference somewhere... But I hate Weevil. I can't take any more of him. And I love Mai. I don't want to keep inflicting him on her, heh. She's the only female in the show that doesn't annoy the shit out of me.

Ahem, anyway... Next chapter features Jou, Yugi and Malik and will be the last one. And I have some time today, so comments it is...

crsg: Well, I'm glad you liked it. I had so much trouble not making it sound gay. Heh. Too much shounen-ai for BobGod...

The Silent Reaper: Ah, yes. I corrected that. Typos really get my goat, I'm the most pedantic person in the world. On the other hand, I don't expend much energy proofreading my fics because... Uh... Well, I guess I'm not that serious about them. ;)

Black Breeze: Wtf. Your notes are not sent to my email by alert on a regular basis. ::shrugs:: ...Eww. I would never stick Mai and Weevil together together. That ought to be illegal. The very idea is repugnant. ;) Yeah, updates have been a little slow; I've had work in the evenings (which means I sleep all day) and I've had the relatives from hell (or, you know, Australia) occupying the rooms with computers.

ThePianoFiend: I'm glad you're still enjoying it, it's actually quite odd to write a bunch of vignettes without romantic angles, heh.

Setine: 'Mai vs Underwood.' I like it. I had lots of trouble trying to keep it from being too depressing, though. I saw the YGO movie - and heard what's coming up in the next season of YGO, which we don't have here yet - the day I wrote this chapter, so it got a little influenced.

Seren147: Yeah. I couldn't resist the Kaiba thing. Go SetoxSerenity. ;)

Freak09: ...Well, a week isn't really a LONG time between updates? I had this story finished before I started posting it, but just finding time to do that has been a problem lately.

i-love-bakura1489: I don't think I could stretch the Anzu/Bakura story out in this instance, but my brain has been trying to think of a good story for those two for a while... The movie, also titled Coffee and Cigarettes, is a series of vignettes starring famous people, acting as themselves, over coffee and cigarettes. It's pretty quirky, I've borrowed some of the scenarios or played with the dialogue because I thought it would be fun to apply it to the YGO gang. Re: your Christmas wishlist, I have a AnzuxMalik one shot already up.

PS: You're alive! And thanks, 'different' was what I was going for... It's a challenge to come up with something ffnet hasn't seen done a million times before. ;)

And that's all, folks.