Duckie: No real commentary this time. o-o But this chapter was a lot easier to write than the first, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Euphoria – The situation with Mokuba will be told as the story goes on, Jou lives in a dormitory on the college campus, and I'm not telling whether it will be lemon or not. :D

Note: Sorry I didn't update over the weekend – I was sick on Saturday and my computer was down Sunday. Also, since people got confused last chapter about the flashbacks, they will now be in bold print.

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Jou's body relaxed, his jaw slackening as Kaiba sought entrance to his mouth. He's drunk. The blonde pulled back, catching the other teenager as he fell into Jou's arms, unconscious. From across the room he hadn't been able to tell, but now that the brunet was lying in his lap, Jou become aware of the glazed over sheen in Seto's azure eyes. "Man, Kaiba..." He looked over at the door, then to Yugi who was powering down cokes and talking to the others. But he couldn't just leave Kaiba here... "Shit."

The blonde eased off the bar stool and draped Seto's arm around his shoulder, than put his arm over Kaiba. He wasn't very heavy, but Jou struggled getting him through the crowd and out the door, vaguely surprised no one had stopped him. It wasn't exactly normal to carry around knocked out guys, though at a bar maybe it wasn't that weird.

Half way down the street, Kaiba's dead weight was starting to cause Jou trouble. He had come close to falling over three times, and his shoulders were beginning to ache unmercifully. Jou shifted his body like an over sized rag doll and carried him bridal style, the brunet's head lolling against Jou's chest and his feet dangling over the mutt's arm. Only then did it occur to him he had no idea where Kaiba lived. "Shit!" He would have to go home with him... Wait – no, that was just...just...wrong. The brunet in his house would be like someone trespassing in his sanctuary, would somehow allow Kaiba in too far. "Kaiba, you owe me big time."

Jou managed to twist the flaky gold knob, kicking the door open. He instinctively moved for the couch, but noticed it was loaded with junk and hesitated; why hadn't he bought that love seat again? The only other place was... No. He couldn't do that. No choice. The blonde grimaced, longingly staring down at his clean, inviting bed, before carefully setting Seto on top of the sheets. The said boy snuggled into the soft mattress, and Jou couldn't help but gape; his silky brunet hair tumbled across his face, thick eye lashes pressed lightly into his cheek and his mouth forming a soft 'o'. Never had Kaiba looked as vulnerable or innocent.

Tentatively, Jou traced one finger over the sleeping teenager's jaw bone, as if checking to make sure Seto was really there and not just a hallucination – no, he couldn't be a hallucination; the blonde's shoulders were a throbbing reminder of that. He shook his head and pulled away, grabbing his CD player from underneath a page of notes he was pretty sure he had a test on Monday.

The disc wasn't labeled, but was a collection of songs he'd downloaded and burned onto a CD with the help of the slightly more computer literate Bakura. His headphones had been a Christmas present from Yugi a few years back; they were expensive and DJ styled with a convenient volume control on the cord. Razorblade blasted in his ears, and his eyes slid shut as he shoved mess out of the way and sunk into the couch, the song pulsed through his body like a vein, every part of him thriving on the music.

Soon the blonde caught himself singing along, his voice quiet enough not to disturb Kaiba in the other room, but loud enough that he was able to match his voice to every strained cord and cram emotion into every lyric. "Sing with me! A brief bout with a razorblade cut me, I freaked out, thinking people did-un't love me..."

A bleary eyed brunet curled up in Jou's bed and listened, the puppy's voice soothing despite its harsh tone. The energy had melted away and now his intoxication was playing tricks with his mind; he wasn't sure where he was or why, who was there, what was going on... Everything seemed hazy and images floated in his mind, leaves drifting in a sluggish river. He found himself not minding, not caring. ...Who was he again? "Doesn't matter..." Seto whispered into the darkness, his mind shutting down again.

Somewhere between track eight and track eleven Jounouchi drifted off himself, settling his head on the armrest and his voice slowly trickling to a stop.

- - - -

Morning sunlight played through the plastic mini blinds on the window, casting a soft glow over the brunet's face and shining down on his eyelids. He moaned and felt around blindly for something to cover his eyes, his hand landing on a pillow. The teen plopped it over his face and breathed in deeply, the rich scent of strawberries and cologne swirling through his nose. Hold on a second – strawberry? I don't use strawberry anything. His eyes shot open and he bolted upright, immediately regretting it as sharp pain jarred his head. Where in the hell...?

Memories came flooding back; drinking, dancing with that girl, kissing the mutt – there. Stop there. You. Kissed. Him. But then what happened? The cells in his brain scrambled for answer, came up blank. They didn't...? Oh no, oh no, no, no. This must be his house. So...where is the mutt? Seto climbed out of the blonde's bed, squeezing his eyes shut as nausea flooded his stomach. He frowned at the mussed bedding, and tugged his feet out of his boots, feeling it necessary even under the bizarre circumstances.

He padded into the living room, and jumped when a thunderous growling sound came from the corner. The brunet whirled around, fists up, and just about had fell over. It was the puppy, rolled up in a ball on the couch, his head twisted at an odd angle to lay on the armrest, and he was snoring, mouth wide open and drool pooling around his head. It was simultaneously cute and repulsive.

Kaiba wasn't sure what to do; he could leave, and that was the option he was most fond of, but he felt obligated to stay, at least until the mutt woke up. Now the question was whether he should let the blonde get up on his own, or if he needed a little stimulus. The brunet smirked and wandered into the kitchen, hunting through the cabinets in search of a cup.

"Lookin' for somethin'?" Asked a sluggish voice, its owner leaned against the door frame.

The cabinet banged shut, the mutt scaring him for the second time that morning. "No." He said stiffly, his arms folding over his chest.

Jou raised an eyebrow, "Yeah, right."

Seto's azure eyes narrowed, and he ignored the throbbing it sent to his pounding head. Roughly, he shouldered past the puppy and snatched his boots out of the blonde's room, then plunked down on the sofa and began lacing them up.

"What the hell's yer problem!?" His chocolate orbs sparked with anger, his voice trembled.

"I-" The room began to sway, the world unfocused and muddled, everything in pairs.

"K-Kaiba?"

There were two mutts'...both seemed worried and confused. His lips were moving, shaping and forming words, but he couldn't hear him.

"Medicine..." He said dumbly, remembered what the doctor had specifically told him, what the bottle read in bold print. 'Do not mix with alcohol.' He'd had three that day, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. One right before he left.

Things weren't blurry anymore; they were simply getting darker, fading away to black. Seto's pulse raced, his breathing becoming shabby and hoarse. Someone was calling out to him again; a void in the abyss, but it was too late now. Seto Kaiba was no longer in the realm of the wake.

Without tearing his eyes away from her, the brunet kneeled and picked up the most serrated piece of glass, pleased to see tiny drops of red bead from his fingertips as he tested the edge. "What is his name." He was demanding it, not asking.

"Seto-"

"What is his name!" Kaiba pressed down on her throat with his forearm, enough to hurt, but not rendering her unconscious. He wouldn't let her go that easily. He dug the glass wedge into the tender flesh of her upper arm, than drew it out painstakingly slow. Dark crimson spurted from the gaping wound and the woman gasped, instinctively reaching to clutch it with her other hand. Bad idea. Seto lodged the shard in her clean arm, this time not taking it out, but madly twisting it.

"Kaiba! I'm your mother!"

The brunet laughed, logic finally beginning to crack; her stupidity was astounding. It didn't matter who she was, what mattered is what he had done, or in some cases, what she hadn't done. "Tell me his name, and I'll let you go."

"It's..."

It shouldn't require thought. The glass punctured her stomach, going straight through. Kaiba picked up another piece, testing it on her left cheek and leaving a thin slash. "You're his mother, you should know!"

"Mokuba!" She sobbed, her head lowered shamefully. "His name...is Mokuba."

"Sorry, mother dearest, the timer went off a long time ago. You lose." There wasn't even time for her to scream as the jagged edge slit her throat. Crimson pooled at his feet and Kaiba abandoned her body, changed shoes, and left the house. He locked the door behind him.

The clubhouse was barely ten minutes away since the river sat a slightly past the fence line, and Seto sprinted all the way down, neatly clearing the fence. Instead of taking the round stepping stones like they usually did so they wouldn't get in trouble for having their clothes wet, the brunet splashed through the shallow water that only came up to his knees. He was cold to the bone and his wet pants clung to his legs, but Seto didn't feel it, was only aware that it should be there.

Across the river there was a wooded area that began as abruptly as it started; the whole woods estimated as maybe twenty feet across. The clubhouse was placed in a clearing, and was more like a shack then anything else. But the two boys went there to hide and play, or if Mokuba was gone, Kaiba would go there to be alone.

The brunet could tell there was an abnormality before he ever looked in the clubhouse. He was eerily alone, and if his raven haired little brother were there then that feeling wouldn't exist. "Mokuba!?" He waited, begging for the comforting sound of his brother's voice. Silence.

"Mokuba?" He was only whispering now, knowing he wasn't going to get an answer no matter how many times he yelled.

Seto shook his head frantically, dodging and darting through trees in search of the only person he'd ever cared about, who had ever cared about him. His heart already knew what happened, but his mind refused to accept it.

When he found him, Kaiba didn't notice the blood, at first all he saw was the small frame, face down in the snow, his jet black locks harsh against the pure white snow. He crouched on the ground and grabbed Mokuba's shoulders, pulling him backwards into his lap and instantly dropped him, scrambling backwards.

The entire front of his jacket was soaked with it, the air was thick and rotten with the stench of it, it was his brother's life force oozing in scarlet. "Mokie... Don't die on me; you've got to hang on a little longer." It was a lost cause – his baby brother had already lost too much blood and when Seto placed a cautious hand over Mokuba's wrist, there was no pulse. "I-I...I killed him. I killed him. I killed him!"

"His," Seto murmured, his body shaking. "Why..."

Jou was panicking – should he call an ambulance, wait it out? Medicine, something about medicine. Images of the prescription bottle and Seto desperately trying to get it back washed up in his mind. The blonde bolted for the kitchen and grabbed his ancient laptop off the table and dropped to the floor, irritably waiting for Google to load. His nimble fingers typed in the name and Jou cursed when he was given a screen that read 'Your search – Daretrium – did not match any documents. No pages were found containing "Daretrium".' "It doesn't exist?" How was that possible!? The stupid bottle had pills in it and it said 'Daretrium'.

Kaiba was crying now, his body wracked with choking sobs. "I did it...I killed him."

The blonde stared, almost afraid of this strange side of Kaiba. But he wasn't even awake; he was hallucinating, or dreaming. Night terror – he'd heard the term before. They were like really bad nightmares, but with more effects. You had a test over it in that psychology class... What do you do for the person having it? He had no idea. Jou raked a hand through his hair and decided to do the one thing that actually made sense. He sat down next to the brunet and tightly wrapped his arms around the other's waist, burying his face in Seto's shoulder, drawing him in so every curve and angle of the azure eyed man's body fit into his own.

"It's alright," he soothed, stroking Seto's hair. It came naturally, and Jou was surprised by how soft Kaiba's hair was, how smooth and rich it felt spreading over his fingers.

Like the eye of a hurricane, Seto was suddenly calm. His breathing started regulating again and he sank into the puppy. In ten minutes, Jou was asleep too, holding Kaiba close security blanket.

- - - -

His eyes blinked open, taking a moment to adjust to the darkness. He was so warm... Delicate breathing gently tickled his ear and Seto burrowed in deeper to the body beneath his. It was then that the dim fog that had taken captive of his brain receded and the brunet hurtled to the floor, hitting his head on the coffee table as he struggled to escape.

The blonde shot upright shortly after, and blinked when he saw Kaiba. "You're still here?"

"Just what do you think you were doing?" His tone was callous, but his eyes were confused and veiled fear.

"Do...ing?" What had he been doing? Jou frowned; was it about holding him earlier?

"You were...never mind. I have more important business to attend to then hanging out with you, mutt."

The puppy didn't bother arguing, he knew he wouldn't get any gratitude out of that hard ass, it was a hopeless case. His stubbornness usually would have prevailed and he would have gotten into it with the heartless brunet, but he was tired and had homework and it just wasn't worth it. "Just go."

Seto almost cringed. He didn't care about the mutt, he didn't care what he said, but for some reason the blonde telling him to leave had hurt. And no one had hurt him in a long, long time. The azure eyed man wordlessly laced up his boots and left, the door quietly clicking shut behind him.

Jou blew a sigh into his bangs and stared up at the ceiling, counting the cracks and nail holes. It was a relief to have the brunet gone, but the crappy apartment seemed emptier without him. Stupid, he was only here a day. You can't miss someone in a day, can't want to depend on someone after only a day; Jou had learned that when he was a kid. He glanced at the books open on the coffee table, at the long equations scrawled on page after page. Not tonight, do it tomorrow. The blonde nodded, agreeing with himself, and went into his bedroom.

In the closet he had three boxes of old memorabilia he'd collected over the years. Yugi called it Jou's Junk Box, but the blonde wasn't overly fond of the nickname. Everything in the box smelled old and musty, and Jou began sifting through school awards and projects he'd done as a little kid. But what he was most interested in was the photo albums. They contained pictures of him at little league games, graduating from elementary school, graduating from high school. His dad wasn't in any of them, and he hadn't been the one who took them. There were pictures of him with Yugi and Honda and Ryou, laughing, and flashing peace signs in their dark navy graduation robes, but no pictures like the one's Yugi had with his grandpa or Honda with his dad who had come even though he was supposed to be out of town. He knew Ryou's parents hadn't been there, but Bakura had been, and in Ryou's bedroom there were pictures in small frames everywhere of him and his mother at soccer games.

A single tear rolled down his cheek before Jou snapped the album shut and shoved the box back into the closet. Pitying himself never did any good, and it never failed to make him feel like the mutt Kaiba loved to kick around. The blonde grabbed his jacket, shrugged it on, and left the dormitory.

- - - -

The weather was unpredictable in November – last night it had been warm enough to be mid-spring, but today it was dreary and cold, a mask of fog hanging low over the city. Seto swiftly cut through the park, finding himself strangely unnerved since there weren't any laughing children running through the grass, or the squeak of metal as the ancient swings went back and forth, and there weren't any parents yelling for their kids to stop playing in the mud. Though he despised children and their general lack of knowledge, the noise was comforting.

As he continued to walk it began to rain. Lightly as first, but then it was pouring, his clothes sticking uncomfortably to his cold body, soaked brunet locks disheveled and in his face. He didn't care; in fact, it was better this way. I deserve that and so much more. His fist clenched at his side; he deserved, so why couldn't he have it? Why wasn't he allowed to be punished!? Because that's what you want. You can never have what you want. Seto's head drooped, the water sheeting off his hair inches away from his face, his right hand working open the latch just the right way out of habit.

The grass squished and mud sucked at his shoes, but Kaiba ignored it, his mind leading him to the fifth row of headstones, second plot. The sleek black marble was inscribed simply; 'Mokuba Kaiba. 1993 – 1998. 'May his soul rest in peace.''

- - - -

The blonde kneeled and pulled weeds away from the grave, watery mud flinging on his pants. He didn't bother with the identical stone next to it – that bastard's grave could grow over with weeds until the care taker cleaned it, because Jou didn't want to associate with him in any way. Especially after what he'd done to Serenity. When the blonde started screaming at the funeral, his mother had tried to tell him it wasn't his dad's fault, but Jou knew better. He had been drunk when he drove Serenity home that night, he always was, it was his fault, and he had killed the honey eyed boy's sister.

Jou stood up and was surprised to see someone else there. Not just anyone, but Seto Kaiba to be exact. What would he be doing here? The blonde angled around headstones and before he ever got close enough to tell whether the brunet was crying or it was only rain coursing down his cheeks, he took off sprinting, only glancing back once he had cleared the fence. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights, his eyes wild and bewildered. The puppy watched him disappear, then focused his attention on the grave Kaiba had been standing in front of. His heart skipped a beat, and a trembling curse escaped his mouth. This said that Mokuba Kaiba had died at the age of five, six years ago.

- - - -

Duckie: Ooh, a cliffhanger! And a confusing one at that! How can someone who they've all known as an eleven year old have been dead for six years? Reviews are lurved, especially ones with critiquing or suggestions on how this bizarre event happened. I have my own plan for things, but if I like someone's idea I might incorporate it too.