Chapter Thirty-Three: Always a Grinch

"I don't chase after anyone, if you wanna walk out of my life, then I'll hold the fucking door open for you."

-Wiz Khalifa

"No, I'm pretty sure you shouldn't spike the punch." A young voice drew Kagome's attention immediately upon re-entering her household. She frowned a bit at the implication and walked around the corner to see the culprit she would most expect up to no good. You could change the clothes but not the man came immediately to mind.

"Albel, stop trying to get everyone drunk, there are a bunch of minor's here. Hell, you are a minor." Kagome pointed out as she hung up her coat with the new scarf – it still had the slight scent of the cologne that Kyoya wore. Why must she give up such a gracious suitor for such a thoughtless one?

"Shivers, if I didn't drink half this lot would be dead and I'd be killing a prison full of guards to make my escape." Albel retorted in his usual lack of tact, making the short boy next to him swallow and run off to where Kaiba was standing near the tree chatting with Roy. Kagome's scowl settled neatly into place and she marched across the room grabbing the swordsman by the ear to drag him upstairs and out of earshot of anyone else.

Albel was so surprised that he didn't think to knock her arm away until they were already in another room. "What the hell woman? I came to your stupid little party, lighten up, a little alcohol ain't gonna kill anybody."

"No, no way. I'm not putting up with that. Either you agree to start behaving or you leave, I wanted to be nice and invite you since I don't think people should have to be alone on the holidays but if you are just going to ruin it for everyone then get out." Kagome was losing patience quickly today. Perhaps it was the idea that he was about to get Kaiba's sweet little brother liquored up had just finally snapped her ability to put up with Albel's shit. "How dare you try and harm a kid."

"The cold making you braver than usual or just the people downstairs?" Albel retorted, his voice going low and dangerous as he walked closer to her. Grinning as he backed her into the wall – the hallway wasn't that long after all. "You ever think I told the kid so he wouldn't drink it, I'm an asshole but I don't roll that way. I'd ask what you think of me, but that seems pretty damn clear."

Kagome swallowed, feeling slightly guilty for her immediate assumption of Albel, she had missed part of the conversation before coming inside after all. He was still close, staring her down – predatory and entrancing at the same time. How could she be a little afraid of him while being attracted to him? That had to be the spell.

"Tch. Whatever, this is all a little too domestic for me anyway." He went to turn away until she grabbed his arm. It was the first time he could think of where she'd touched him of her own volition where it wasn't the stupid spell spurring her on. He frowned at the inclination to smile at the idea – stupid. He was becoming one of those fools that sat around her feet all day waiting for attention – it was pathetic.

"Wait, I'm sorry, don't just leave. I didn't realize and I shouldn't have presumed." Kagome commented softly. Her damn voice, it was so beautiful he just wanted to rip the vocal chords out. He instead scoffed again and pushed her away.

"I wasn't leaving yet shivers, I gotta get a free meal first. Then I have a gig to get to." Albel retorted, keeping his secretly pleased at her attention status as exceptionally classified. "Gotta pay the bills somehow – this outfit intends to leave me at the lowest rank for as long as possible."

"Only because Albel keeps losing all of his rank by being insubordinate." Roy remarked, the cheerful black haired man coming up the steps and winking at Kagome before slipping into the bathroom.

"Butt out sparklers." Albel called after him, having yet another nickname for the new arrival. "Ain't no one talking to you."

The news didn't really surprise Kagome, if there was anyone that could be insubordinate she knew it was probably the semi-sociopath warrior. "Well, it seems like it'll be more of a late lunch than a dinner. We should get down and enjoy it – but no more spiking the punch."

"Yeah yeah, none of you are a lick of fun, I know." Albel waved a hand in grumpy dismissal, tugging at his collar again before reaching into an inner pocket to pull out a short wrapped gift – it looked like it was probably a CD. It was wrapped in newspaper and lacked a bow or any markings but somehow that fit Albel more than the nicer clothes he'd adopted for tonights dinner. "Here, don't go getting all emotional or anything but you aren't completely intolerable and I knew you got me something. Don't want you thinking I owe you."

"Albel, thanks." Kagome took the gift, holding it close. It was an unexpected gesture. But the way he was staring at her she wasn't sure if he wanted to say something else. The awkward silence went on for several more seconds – they could hear people talking downstairs and the toilet flushed. Finally Albel grew irritated.

"Hell woman, are you stupid? You are supposed to open it." Albel snapped, digging in his pockets for a cigarette to help deal with the annoyances.

"I wait and open my gifts on Christmas day," Kagome scowled again, so much for a sweet moment. What an asshole. "I'll open it then. I'm sure I'll like it."

She wasn't sure at all but it was the polite thing to say.

"Whatever, you fuckers are cooky. Waiting to open gifts...pft." Albel finally walked past her. "I'm gonna go see if they got the food ready yet so I can blow this lame party."

Kagome grit her teeth after the fighter, taking a slow breath to remind herself that now wasn't the time to let people start fighting. In, then slowly out, in again – try to not let her temper run away with her.

"Whoa, you seem stressed." Roy commented upon exit from the room upstairs. "Albel does that to everybody – don't take it too personally. He seems to like you."

"That's not really a consolation." Kagome deadpanned.

"No, I suppose not." Roy smirked a little at her remark. "At the very least he did say he wasn't staying long. Try to suffer through – this is what family does to everyone at the holidays."

"Well, I wish I had my family here – Albel's just a jerk classmate I'm forced to put up with cause of this stupid magic." Kagome huffed, she certainly didn't like the route things were going. This was getting harder and harder to put up with.

"It's hard to be without people on the holidays – but these people care about you. Albel isn't completely horrible when he manages to keep his mouth shut. You could always ask Ghaelon to fashion a spell so he can't speak for the next party." Roy suggested, a mischievous glint in his eye.

She laughed despite herself at the idea and shook her head. "No, I think he'd explode if he couldn't get all that angst out somehow. What about you uh...Roy, do you have family somewhere that you are missing?"

"No." He shook his head. "My parents died a while ago and I was an only child. Married to my work many say."

"Well, I guess that's good since you guys seem to help people. You worked with Ed a lot right? Even though you two don't seem to get along very well." Kagome had to admit it was easy to speak with Roy – he had down to earth attitude she didn't expect having seen him interact with some of his other subordinates. A different guy when he wasn't 'on the job' as it were.

"We have in the past. Our fields of study have the same base set of understanding – though we each approach alchemy in different ways." Roy answered honestly, nodding toward the steps. "Calm enough to join everyone else?"

"Yes I think so." Kagome nodded to that. "And I hope I can see you work sometime, I think what Ed does is pretty cool."

"I will have to show you sometime. Perhaps Ed and I can give a demonstration – I owe him from the last time we sparred." Roy agreed, smirking as if there was something funny about what he'd said. She figured she must not be in on the joke, and let it go. Grinning to the others as she came back down into the living room. She was offered nods, but thankfully people seem to have broken off to speak to each other and were managing to get along. It was a bit of relief – she'd had concerns they would all start attacking each other.

"You look...nice, Kagome." Kaiba's voice caught her attention and she smiled at him. Trying to keep her temper in check – she wasn't going to ruin her party no matter what. She wanted to have one day that at least felt a little normal.

"Thank you Kaiba." She knew her voice was chillier than usual and at the eyebrow raise she knew it was back up the steps – if she didn't speak to him then it was very likely she would snap in front of everyone. She missed the exchanged glances on the bottom floor – but then she also didn't know about the pot people were taking on how long she put up with Kaiba after he'd spied on her.

"What?" Kaiba wasn't too pleased at the idea of leaving his brother with the thug that Kagome let hang around despite her insistence that she didn't like Albel.

"I know about Kyoya, that you had him spy on me." Kagome remarked, hands moving to her hips as a natural extension of her annoyance. "That's not okay Kaiba, I'm pretty sure I haven't heard of a worse invasion of privacy. Why are you spying on me?"

Kaiba frowned at the sudden revelation, of course – that was why Kyoya had said he wouldn't keep anymore tabs on the girl – had he fallen for her like everyone else? What was it about this particular female that had so many men gunning for her attentions?

"Because it's very clear you are hiding something." Kaiba retorted, he wouldn't back down from her just because she'd jumped on him with this information. He could deal with Kyoya's treachery later. He had been wanting to ask Kagome about this for some time and as she brought it up he was going to go all in. "I had a feeling from the moment we met there was something off about you, I thought maybe you just wanted to make friends to try and use me for my money. It's pretty common place for people with money to do a basic background check on people they spend or plan to spend time with."

Kagome blinked, surprised at how annoyed he sounded beneath that cool exterior. He was angry at her? She almost snapped but he stepped closer and even though he lacked the mystical ability of her other paramours he was naturally intimidating – enough to make her second guess just how to reply so he could continue.

"I had hoped nothing would turn up, that perhaps I might have found someone vaguely worth hanging out with given all the dweebs at our school. But of course, there were inconsistencies with your school records – you were out much of your last year. Medical excuses are well and good and I even felt bad for you. I considered getting you a private physician but once people began to look into your records they didn't make sense. Some of the combinations of sickness's were clearly outright lies – and you seem healthy enough right now. What spurred some miraculous recovery? Or was there never any illness in the first place?" Kaiba spoke lowly, there was a perilous calm in his whisper.

"I started to really wonder – and low and behold – no records of illness – you never saw a doctor in any official capacity in the entire time you were claiming to be sick. Need I even mention the strange array of acquaintances you have gathered here?" The accusatory aspect of his voice unmistakable as he spoke. "Other students I understand – except for Albel – I will never have the state of mind to know why anyone would want to share space with that walking felony. But two students, other adults...people that research the supernatural...it's all shady Kagome – and even you have to know that. I only went searching for information where I was being mislead – who are you? Or maybe I should say 'what are you?'"

Kagome stared at Kaiba's long tirade – it was soft but he was still obviously livid about having been mislead – but tough – she scowled right back and hissed.

"Maybe if you'd of just asked then I would have told you." Kagome wasn't too happy about him just attacking her like this, where did he get the nerve? "You don't have to just assault me like I'm some horrible person, I wasn't trying to be dishonest with you. And no matter what, it was not okay for you to just look into me without at least asking my permission first."

"Because everyone running around with suspicious and secretive government agencies reacts well to background checks." Kaiba retorted with a roll of his eyes, disgusted. "If you must know I was going to ask you at the dance but I couldn't get up the nerve. Then I thought it would be better to wait until after your little luncheon here so as to not cause a scene. But since you insist I'm asking you now, who the hell are you Kagome Higurahi? Or is it too late or are you going to give some other lame excuse as to why you can't say what's going on?"

Kagome had considered saying 'too late now bub' but it was a little difficult after his last remark. Was he always so on the mark about people? If it wasn't for the spell would he even have the vaguest interest in her at all? He seemed too clever for her to really be able to compete. He was clearly far from just an average 'mortal' given he'd dissected that she was up to something here when no one else had yet – should she be worried about Kyoya too? But then he already knew what Kaiba did and didn't seem to care nearly as much.

"I'm a priestess..." Kagome felt as ineffective as that explanation sounded. "I've ah...been cursed. I know it sounds crazy and I understand if you don't wanna deal with me anymore but hear me out first. I am under a spell that causes some people around me to fall in love with me. We're trying to fix it but ah, it's probably why you're willing to talk to me at all or even put up with me. It's a little complicated but yeah...that's the idea."

"You are under a curse that makes rich and powerful men fall in love with you?" the skepticism was clear.

"Hey, I didn't ask for this so don't even go down that road." Kagome snapped, standing up straighter – she'd dealt with more intimidating men than Kaiba – she wouldn't back down just cause his feelings got hurt. Particularly not if he was going to be a huge jerk like Albel.

"Absurd." Kaiba retorted.

"I told you..."

"No." He interrupted. "Not the supernatural, I have had run in's with things like that before. The idea of some curse forcing people to feel love. You don't just create emotions out of nothing, if the capacity wasn't there then it wouldn't exist."

"You can't know that, just cause you ran across things before – which we'll need to talk about sometime – doesn't make you an expert." Kagome replied, shaking her head. "You don't put up with anyone like this, I know your reputation. You'd of not even given me a chance if you thought I was trying to dupe you."

"You were trying to dupe me, you failed by the way and you're wrong. I don't like you cause of some mystical nonsense – maybe it's how we came to meet but that's all. Besides, I put up with Yugi and his little gang for years – I'm far more patient than what you would hear about me." Kaiba replied, frowning at his own admission of feelings. "But then, I don't think I have a shot here as you seem pretty quick to have decided already what my personality is. You aren't really that different than the rest, so in the end maybe you did dupe me."

Kagome blinked in surprise as Kaiba stepped away from her, walking toward the steps. She heard him calling out to his brother. "Mokuba, come on – we're leaving, now."

End Chapter

Whew, lots of stuff this chapter. Got to have some Albel who I think is a favorite of a lot of people. As well as Kaiba – if it wasn't for the short moment with Roy in the middle I'd say this was the jerk chapter.

-Aura

To my reviewers:

kakashixangela - Mistletoe will come up XD...but Kaiba and Kagome aren't going well...he's on his way out.