Sooo, have I ever mentioned how much I love all my readers? I swear you guys leave me the nicest damn comments that I've ever read, and I really appreciate that you guys took the time to write them out!
So, to SnowCrazy15: One. YES! Thank you for loving my chapter endings...because they even make ME crazy sometimes because I'm always like, "damn it morgan, where's the next chapter!?" Two. HOLY SHIT, thank you so much, that is honestly so flattering to hear that about my writing-my long-winded-run-on-sentence-poetic-bullshit as I often consider it! lol and also especially cause I just posted on your story to tell you how I envied yours. I hope this chapter is to your liking as well! It's a bit mores silly.
To : divine. infekt: Ahhh, oh my goodness, if you really recommended this story then that is so awesome, you don't even know! lol so far the only recommendations I got were from forcing my sister to tell people to read mine on her fanfic hahah. And yes, yes, yessss-glad you love their crazy, disjoining banter because I can't even stop writing it, and I'm always nervous it doesn't read as well because it's all in my talking style lol. And hellyeahhh, because I'm especially surprised that someone else would appreciate the whole 'medicine' thing because I figured most people would be like "Uh, what the fuck?" But yeah, I have gone in and out of medication stuff and a lot of this is actually taken from my real life experiences-the adderall mostly. ANYWAYS! Thank you so much, enjoy the next chapter, haha and don't worry sometimes I get lost in my own writing too, always wondering if it actually makes any sense to anyone lol
To yllimilly: Okay, soo I see you're on chapter four! Which is awesome because it's definitely one of my favorite, favorite chapters; so, in that sense it's really nice to see such positive feedback towards the flashbacks and the incorporation of Mai. I know the flashbacks can sometimes be spread out, and also that a lot of 'puppy shippers' legit hate the existence of women in their fics lol but I feel as if it's natural. And no worries, lol I just started one of yours as well (although now that i think about it...you probably won't see this comment for like a month...damn it)...well my point was that I will being doing the same!
To YOU KNOW WHO; AKA: my crazy roommate: bahahah JILLINOIS (you will hate me for that) I am glad however, that we spent our entire first night back getting drunk and reading our stories in silence while Frodo giggled around with Sam Wise and friends-like WHAT? haha and JESUS, all these reviews, they legit kill me every time I read them because there are A MILLION-and also THANK YOU. FOR. FINALLY. APPRECIATING MY SHITTY MAJOR! bahah now you understand the only reason I'm in it...(so i can write yugioh fan fiction..FOREVER) lol teehee, any who this is the weirdest comment to post visibly...soooo yeah. loveeee youuu!
Alright everybody! Get ready for a progressively fun chapter-full of much and more dialogue instead of eight thousand philosophical paragraphs for once lol. At first I was a little unsure about this chapter, but the more I re-read it, the most I kind of love the way it turned out.
-.-.-.
Chapter Thirteen: Another Year Older…
"There's no way in hell I'm wearing this."
"Oh where's your sense of culture." Joey tried his best to keep his features from shifting any farther from seriousness, but failed miserably as he watched Kaiba look down at the t-shirt held across the front of his chest.
"Birthday Bitch," he stared back disbelievingly, leaving the question implied.
Joey shrugged, "I thought it added a little something."
"I'm almost afraid to ask if you bought me a present."
"Oh, well then be very afraid," Joey grinned, patting down on the plastic bag that hung from his forearm.
"A matching tiara perhaps?" Kaiba peered over, inspecting around the see-through sides of crinkled, tan plastic.
"I'm sensing some suppressed birthday fantasy here," the blonde pulled the bag away teasingly.
"Oh, princess? Definitely," Kaiba turned away, neatly folding the shirt into a perfect pile.
Joey stared thoughtfully at the shirt, overshadowed by sarcasm. "And yet you insist that I'm the one in need of therapy."
The other boy stiffened purposefully. "Hence the fact that you're the one in it," he remarked dully, "but please, can we not go there today?"
"Oh." It was as stupid sound. A stupid sound coming from a stupid mouth, but a sound that persisted amidst the irregularity of the atmosphere, an irregularity that had become somewhat constant, and oh-so devastating.
"Besides," Kaiba applied his effortless skill to redirect, "I thought today was supposed to be about me…" He paused uncertainly, "my birthday, you know—that sort of stuff."
At first the blonde seemed to bluster up, but as he took in the other's words and features his exterior softened, "I understand."
A challenging look sailed across the room. "Do you?"
The tone itself seemed to push Joey back with two strong hands, and yet he was still standing. "When's the last time you celebrated your birthday?"
The almost shy, embarrassed smile came as a relief, however, when Kaiba's intonation dropped. "A long time."
"Hmm…fact number…"
"I swear," Kaiba interjected, "I'm like this close to kicking you out."
A deep sigh met the response. "Why do you always do that?"
"Do what?"
"I don't know, you just always try to dominate everything."
For some reason Kaiba laughed at this. "Dominate? Right."
"Are you learning how to tell jokes, or I'm going deaf?" Joey stared disbelievingly.
"Oh yeah I've been practicing," blue eyes rolled back. "Do you think before you talk? Or does it all just spill out?"
Although he'd slightly touched a nerve and caused the blonde to sputter, "No…I just, I don't know, I think too much to organize it. Plus, what's the point of having a conversation if you plan it in advance?"
The brunette's eyebrow rose like the statement was the weirdest thing he'd ever heard, "So you know what will happen."
"That's stupid."
"No, it's smart."
"How?" Joey quarreled, "You're never gonna learn anything reading from a script."
"Why would I want to learn from anyone? That's what school is for."
"Jesus Kaiba, its called human interaction, who says shit like that?"
"Me apparently," Kaiba sighed disinterestedly.
"Oh, apparently? You mean you didn't' already prepare your answer?"
"Ohmygod." Kaiba released the most angst filled sigh the blonde had ever heard from Mr. Put Together. "Why do you take everything I say so literally? Am I not allowed to speak figuratively? Oh that's right. No, you'll go off and cry about it."
"Yeah get me some Kleenex," Joey spoke dryly, "I'm about to bawl my eyes out."
Any trace of adolescent normalcy disappeared behind another irritated eye roll and Kaiba didn't entertain the blonde's remark under his cloak of adulthood.
"Relax yourself," Joey spoke up uncharacteristically, feeling the small immature outburst triggering the older brother in him, "It was just a question."
"Yeah, I picked up on that, good thing I taught myself punctuation too!" his eyes widened in mock excitement.
"You sound like my sister," Joey groaned, "Can't you just be normal for like twenty whole minutes?"
"This is me being normal," Kaiba said insistently.
"No, you're defensive as fuck," Joey widened his eyes with an awkward smile. "And you complain way more than I imagined."
"Ew, why are you imaging me?"
"Ew?" Joey asked after the squeak that folded Kaiba's face into an innocent sort of revulsion. "Are you eight? Do I have cooties or something?"
The folds turned down in a very thoughtful confusion. "What are cooties?"
"That was you being an asshole right?"
"Why would I ask you a question if I wanted to be an asshole?" He asked absurdly. "Conversing is stupid."
"Were you ever normal?"
"Who's definition of normal are we going by?"
"I feel like I'm on trial," Joey groaned, "Stop answering with questions!"
"Then how will I ever learnnnn anything," Kaiba mocked annoyingly.
"Does your brother hate you?" Joey asked amazed, "You are impossible to compromise with."
"That's because I don't settle."
"Dominating," Joey coughed to the side.
"I'm not." the brunette gritted his teeth.
Joey repeated the gesture, "Bullshit and lies."
"God, and you have the nerve to say I'm disagreeable, does your sister hate you?" Kaiba stared, "You're an idiot."
Joey shrugged, "You're the one talking to a dog."
"Ah—" The brunette paused, mouth in mid air…"Touche."
Then stillness; the mood was playful and the atmosphere was light, but the feeling never lasted. Instead, Kaiba couldn't help but pull the details down into place and begin to over-analyze them. Losing all optimism to acrimonious elements of thought, the brunette tried to reach the understanding of why he'd ever gone to Joey's the night before. Why he continuously rendered himself defenseless against the carefree-carpe-diem that he couldn't understand. This just wasn't rational. It didn't make sense.
There was nothing to gain—so what was he trying to keep up for?
Releasing a heavy sigh, Kaiba's eyes swept over the bag dangling from the other's arm. He didn't need to get me anything,he considered guiltily, unable to draw the simple connection of a kind gesture. Nothing was that simple; and no one had gotten him a present that wasn't his brother in years. Years, his mind reiterated as if it were easily forgotten. It's been years. Glancing towards Joey, who now held him thoughtfully in his gaze, the brunette felt small and almost helpless. He felt as if time began withdrawing, or that, perhaps, it had never gone forward; and he was still six years old.
"So then you'll be turning six?" the joke translated into the most unintentional slight when he allowed himself to listen to it. If you only knew… Kaiba sighed as his heart muscles clenched and shot off in acceleration, hardly able to finish the thought…how right you really are. In truth, it was as if he'd never grown up, never gotten the chance to, but at the same time that innocence had been compromised.
In theory, six was supposed to symbolize the most congruent, single-digit number, at least he'd read that somewhere in his endless search for answers and explanations. Numerology, he recalled, what a joke. Immediately, the openness turned dismissive without consent, and Kaiba wanted nothing more than to smash the number's symmetry into inconsistent smithereens. It deserves to be as "together" as it left me, he thought bitterly, back in time, back to the last birthday he could remember—the one he never got the chance to celebrate. Six—it felt as if he were constantly turning the same, small, unsound age—like he was continuously reliving the disfiguration…
Who sends balloons to a funeral? His frown fell visibly now, but the blonde was too buried in a cigarette to notice. Balloons are for celebrating, not for saying goodbye…not like that, he sighed, sinking in and out of the five second scene of black and gray balloons, all bound together, disappearing behind a heavy, red-brown door as it closed the space. It was the wake, he corrected the lapse in accuracy out of habit, not the funeral. However, the adjustment did little to dissuade the end result, and he could still see those stupid, floating spheres—all bouncy and full of life as they continued to suck the breath from the lungs on either side of them…
And then Kaiba had to force a refrain, emitting a stifled breath, and reaching two fingers to his wrist, counting as the Adderall systematically erased the same thoughts they'd created. That last part seemed lost to Kaiba though, that simple 'cause and effect' he miscalculated in between the quick pace palpitations beneath his fingertips.
Calmer with his mind back in control, but unable to muster enough courage, Kaiba fell back into six; and as wide, but clouded crystal eyes traced the motions of Joey forming perfect rings of smoke, he wished there was someway to let the blonde now how hard this was. How scared his birthday made him. How incomplete the number six left him. How he didn't know why he ever mentioned it to him. How it had been well over ten years, how he forbid even Mokuba from disclosing it, or how the real reason he was afraid of balloons was because they reminded him of dying.
Saddened eyes swirled centripetally with the circle of smoke drifting weightlessly off the mindless motions of the boy's mouth. Sighing, his sight spun unevenly as the air pushed and pulled the shape. From a perfect circle to disjoining wisps, the disruption drew him more deeply into the slightly shaded auras that had once again looked up through tousled bangs to find him.
"You okay?" The boy shifted his weight, never disconnecting from the evident opening.
No. "Mind your own business," he replied instead, knowing soon he'd crank up the features of his mask and smother the truth as always. However, the truth had already slipped between the plastic and the plasma, and given cause to panic; realizing that 'how' required a 'why'—the second part of the conclusion he'd never reached.
"We're buds now," Joey downplayed the chill with familiar phrases. "Your business is my business. Remember?"
But the words didn't seem so brilliant now that someone else was saying them. "One step at a time, Wheeler," he meant to employ critically, but wound up deciding the statement to himself instead.
Joey rolled his eyes. "Yes, master." His intonation echoed dryly.
"I appreciate the title," Kaiba reached out and obnoxiously ruffled the blonde's hair before turning towards the door. "You really are man's best-friend aren't you?"
"Hey!" Joey exclaimed, leaping out of his seat; red faced and only footfalls behind. "What the hell!"
The elder boy drew a tasteful onyx dress coat from an ashen coat rack that was twisted into the shape of a tree; extending three branches flecked in gold paint for arms. "Don't be such a baby," he grinned, watching Joey collect his things angrily.
"Yeah well, easy with the 'dog' shit okay?"
Kaiba laughed in spite of himself, "You said dog shit."
Anger transitioned apathetically into flat, empty eye contact. "Now who's immature?"
Several slender appendages rose blamelessly above the brunette's head, "Hey! I'm not the one who called myself one earlier."
"So you took that seriously?"
"Well you are wearing dog tags," the brunette continued, dancing through conversation without the deadweight of his ever-distracted memory reels. They were always out of place and never quiet in sync; and although he could deconstruct them in his sleep, he had little to no control over them. They played and paused as they pleased, child-proofing the settings of rewind and fast-forward that Seto constantly fought to be in control of.
"Oh these?" Joey lifted the chain sarcastically; "Thank God you knew how to ID me without my collar."
"Collar?" Kaiba whistled. "Now who's the one with the suppressed fantasy?"
"Gross."
"Yeah," the brunette cocked his head observantly. "You couldn't pull off the tail."
"Well thanks for confirming that," the blonde dismissed, feeling self-conscience, and hot in the face.
"What else are robots for?"
Joey's eyes rolled back so far that they seemed to disappear. "Shut up."
.-.-
The sun was setting by the time they'd made any distance and the sky was sinking into shades of indigo and violent; weaving unevenly through streaks of fiery tangerine as the waves of light died out into a new frequency. Joey felt calmly upset, but confident, slinking easily from underneath the weight of their last squabble; in order to see clearly, he had to learn to disengage, he couldn't let Kaiba's stealthy tactics sneak up on him if he wanted this to work. And it had to work, he couldn't screw up Kaiba's birthday, not when he was so close.
Drifting downward, Joey's eyes fell to the plastic bag that bounced against his thigh with every step, and fought persistently against the wind's attempts to rip it right from his hands. Five fingers furled even more tightly around the handle that was growing damp with perspiration and Joey continuously secured and re-secured the same un-threatened grip.
This had become important to him, as of late though, and he had already developed the fear of losing it; but he couldn't watch Kaiba disappear now. Not when he was on his way. Not when…when things were how they were now. After all, he'd won, hadn't he? He'd earned himself the security he so desperately lacked—the stability he'd long since tipped the scales between; and his medication was only making it easier to embrace the strange taste of tension—it had quickly become his favorite flavor.
It looked like the ocean and felt like the sky—warm, salty, and heavier than anything he'd ever tried to hold; and yet it dissolved weightlessly on his tongue, as fleeting as a breeze sweeping through clouds, too transparent to touch. And now I'm treating Kaiba like Poetry, Joey reevaluated his own unprovoked comparison with embarrassment that he slunk right back under. I would've been better off with the collar, he released a groan, met by further silence.
The stripes of orange had segued into scarlet, and then fallen beneath the pitch-black blanket of stars that swallowed the sun deep into the skyline. The brunette had hardly noticed the shift in scenery however, because he'd become entranced with his own feet. Following each footfall in a straightforward pattern helped distract him from the unnerving splashing of the lake turning inside out against itself in every conceivable direction.
Focus, focus, he repeated in sync with his muscles releasing and contracting beneath his weight. Just stay focused, and you wont miss a beat. Although he'd already missed three and his chest was rising so rapidly it had begun to lag; palpitating in place of constant motion, suddenly it was seeming more and more like his birthday every second.
The thumping and the beating had been organic once, back when his lungs had given out, when his pulse began to pound against his chest like a fist. That was then though, this was now, and the sensation was self-instilled—the insincerely honest combination of chemicals and consciousness that threw him back and forth from Jekyll to Hyde. Yet, in some sick, demented way, he liked to feel the empty pauses between heartbeats—the way the acceleration made him shiver—it helped remind him that he was still alive without forcing him to feel anything that was real.
Joey was real though…A real pain in the ass, Kaiba announced in his head, bearing no malice or conviction—which allowed his brain to carry it off and twist it into every possible shape. Shapes that he'd seen morph in and out of each other uncertainly for weeks, unable to keep up as Joey jumped from Point A., to B., to C. with no discernable motives.
Exhaling, his fingers fell around his cigarettes. Another year older—another year wiser…at least that'd how the saying goes, but Kaiba found the latter lacking validity. Another year older? Yes. But Wiser? It was under much and more debate lately. What the hell was he doing anyways? Where was his head at? He knew this game—so why couldn't he play? Why couldn't he detach? He had always relied on himself—had always counted on the only person who couldn't let him down; yet, here he was, standing alongside Joey, sharing a cigarette as if it were second nature.
"Whatcha' thinkin' about?" Joey asked, bobbing his head along curiously.
"That I don't feel much different than I did yesterday," he sighed.
The blonde took the cigarette, "Bah-hum-bug."
Kaiba rolled his eyes. "I was trying to be serious."
"Kaiba, if birthdays were about 'being serious' then no one would celebrate them."
"But you just said earlier…"
"…I'm not following…" Joey looked skeptically into space as he interrupted uncooperatively.
Kaiba shrugged into his jacket, feeling scorned. "Whatever."
"Just let loose for once," Joey merely smiled, nudging the other boy lightly with his elbow. "Even you must get tired of being so serious all the time."
"I'm not serious." The older boy lied; he'd always been serious. "I just don't like unnecessary things."
"Like…fun…?" The blonde trailed off
"What is it with you and thinking I can't have fun?" Kaiba shook his head.
"Uhm, I hope that was rhetorical…"
"Fuck off," the brunette flipped his hair out of his eyes, "I thought today was supposed to be about me, remember?" He argued, with the slightest traces of a pout
"There's the Kaiba I know," Joey said grinning, almost swinging a friendly arm around Seto before losing the gesture in the motions of a stretch.
The other boy glanced, but made no comment. Truth be told—if anything—they were a work in progress; progress that either stalled inevitably or shot forwards inconceivably, but neither were graspable, and the brunette feared that perhaps the intangibility was the failure of his medicine taking effect.
As the concrete took a spiraling series of turns through the park, they re-emerged in a continuous series of smoke and sighs. Neither spoke, but this had become a normalcy—a sort of conversational paralysis they fell into after they'd said too much, or when they had too much to say. So far these episodes had ranged in severity, anywhere from a mild thirty-minutes, to an entire hour spent staring at the spaces between their breaths. Those simple and extended pauses fit them so naturally and hit them so in sync that they were perfect in all their imperfection—in their lack of progress they were progressing.
Sometimes it felt as if they were speaking more through the distances than when they actually produced sound. Conversations without words…there was simply something astounding about it. Although, when Joey finally broke through the barrier, as he was so frequently first to do, presenting his surprise with a "Tahh-dahh!" Kaiba threw up his hands, "WOWW!"
Joey turned his back to the Piano Bar, smiling, "Too soon?"
-.-.-
After another twenty-minutes of convincing Kaiba to come inside, Joey won the executive over with the idea of a running tab. Although the brunette didn't intend on letting Joey foot the bill on this one, he needed the extra time to mentally prepare himself—to quell the initial discomfort triggering resistance.
He couldn't help but be apprehensive. The last time they'd been here was the same night this started; and one of the many that Kaiba had difficulty reliving and an even harder time remembering; not for a lack of detail either, but out of a fear towards it.
Staring at the basement enclosure, he took each step carefully as to not repeat himself. Imagery of scars and scratches surfaced immediately in the dark, somber scene and blue eyes tried to glimpse the places he'd left his mark on Joey's arms. Even the delicate keys of a well-played solo piece couldn't overpower the forgotten corner of the establishment that emitted the blonde's terrified, tantalizing tones and frantic confusion.
Taking a literal moment to pause and swallow, the brunette pushed his heart back into his chest before it outran and abandoned him. Turning forcibly from the haunting atmosphere, it was almost too much to face the contrast across from him; the calm, curious, and carefree boy he'd known longer than he realized.
Bright hazel eyes were watching him, flecks of jade and garnet flickering through subtle swirls of chocolate. As the brunette felt his mouth open and close, he struggled to mirror the unfamiliar frequency, unable to find a way to translate and channel it constructively. In that instance though, his empty stomach lurched, sickened by the scent of cigarettes as he caught the faint crescent shapes along Joey's forearm.
"Do you want a drink?" All six-foot three inches pushed out of the seat so fast that the table shook.
"I thought I said I'm paying?" Joey's eyes widened confused with some seemingly mild offense in his voice.
Usually Kaiba would have lost it, but he turned exasperation into sarcastic, pressured speech instead, "Listen, are you the Birthday Bitch? No—so why don't you sit back down and let me buy you a drink."
"Seven and Seven." The blonde's entire body melted back bewilderedly. Damn. The word flashbulbed involuntarily throughout his entire sensory; and the masculine undertones matched the one's that sparked this fascination weeks ago. No, years ago. This time it was different though, and Joey found himself re-tracing the back of the brunette's navy blue shirt through the crowd, and over to the bar where he was now standing.
Waiting rather gracefully, if there was ever such a thing; he was moving with such purpose that it was almost hypnotic, but he never broke stride, or stance—as if he just got to float through life flawlessly while the rest of the world tripped headfirst into a wall.
Sighing, Joey shook his head, fumbling to retrieve a Xanax from his jacket pocket before the executive sensed something and looked over. Just like he always does, Joey felt the sphere dissolve bitterly, temporarily abandoning his earlier concern about mixing it with alcohol when he caught site of Seto approaching in his peripheral.
"Seven and Seven," Kaiba slid into his seat, and Joey's drink across the table. "And whiskey for me!"
"Wait!" Frantic fingertips waved at Kaiba to pull back from his drink. "Not yet," the blonde reprimanded, gathering his own glass before readying it.
A devilish eyebrow rose in a dangerous arch, "Should I have brought it in a bowl?" he asked softly, but sarcastically.
The words aren't what fazed Joey though, but he mirrored the expression nonetheless, with both eyes peering from beneath strands of blonde. "Was that a request?"
"Maybe."
Joey scowled this time. "Oh shut it m—" he was about to direct an attack, but traded it for caution, "—Kaiba. C'mon, " his Seven and Seven rose once again. "Birthday shot!"
"Alright, alright," Kaiba smiled, bringing the glass to his lips and joining Joey in a countdown to three. "Ah," he released an airy satisfaction, easing into the space, and savoring the long-loved sensation of whiskey burning throughout him like a space heater.
There was a soft clink and the other boy set his glass down as well, but with no similar expression of enjoyment; and the enthusiasm that wasn't present at the end of the shot caused the executive to speculate nervously.
"Is your drink okay?" He inquired, still burdened by the impulse to start apologizing for that night. "Because if not, I'll go get you a new one."
The offer offset Joey even more than the splash of vodka that was melting his brain in the sweetest way. "No, thank you."
"So proper," the dark liquid hit the back of the brunette's throat as he continued to tease, "looks like the pooch got a pedigree."
However, Joey simply assessed the glass that was making casual back and forth trips, his eyes routinely noting the levels.
"Do you…not like drinking?" Kaiba asked, setting the whiskey down in hopes to refocus Joey's attention back to his face.
"No, I do," the blonde took a second drink, almost as if to validate his claim. "I'm just really careful with it is all."
"Oh, light weight?"
"Do I look very light?" Joey gestured to his average, but stockier build.
Kaiba grinned, "You're pretty small to me."
"Speak for yourself Skin and Bones."
But it only provoked a wider grin, and another drink—the alcohol was diffusing with the Adderall to form an invincible tolerance and the insatiable desire for conversation. "You know Wheeler, you're not half bad sometimes."
Joey's eyes narrowed at the backhanded compliment. "And the other times?"
"Well, I want to ring your neck of course!" Kaiba exclaimed, in mock dramatics, swallowing another mouth sized portion.
"And you're really somethin' else, y'know that?"
"Consistently inconsistent," the brunette smiled, perhaps the widest Joey'd ever seen, "That's me."
Genuinely proud of himself for getting such a positive reaction, Joey was about to confess to the other boy that he should always be inconsistent, but his phone sent a double vibration up his leg.
"What's that?" Kaiba peered out of invasive curiosity.
"A cell-phone."
"Oh boy!" the brunette feigned child-like excitement. "Really? Cause I've never seen one of those before!"
Joey tried not to smile, "Shut up," he shook his head, shooting a text back while blindly fingering for the glass to his right.
"Sooo?" the CEO coaxed on for a more thorough explanation.
"Well, I hope you don't mind," Joey shrank down, innocently into himself, when a curvaceous pair of hips slunk in and around the crowd. "But we're actually meeting someone here."
Kaiba became defensive at the ominous description before his eyes fell hypnotically in a swaying rhythm. "Tall. Red. Two-O'Clock?"
"Yeah," Joey tipped his head, not turning towards Sam right away.
"You sure know how to pick'em Wheeler."
Joey blushed. "It's not—she's not…"
"Not what?" A small hand rested on his shoulder.
The color deepened and his voice dropped, "Nothing."
"I'm Sam," she turned familiarly away from Joey's flustered face and towards the unfamiliar one instead, "And you are…"
"Charmed," Kaiba smiled, crossing his legs and extending his hand.
Perfect, perfect, perfect, Joey grumbled. "So, now that you two have met…"
"Well, I'm not finished," Kaiba scoffed at the inconsiderate interruption. "I'm Seto," he redirected charismatically.
Joey's eyes refocused, wounded by the wording. "Se…"
"Yes." The brunette readdressed bossily after realizing. "My name."
Not about to force repetition, Joey trailed off. "Yeah…"
"Awkward turtle?" Sam asked, making a funny motion with both hands.
"I need another drink," Joey sighed, tipping back more than half a glass.
"Damn," Kaiba commented, "So much for being careful."
Sam laughed, "Joey? Careful? Do those two words even belong in the same sentence?"
"I like her," Kaiba nodded, and the grin that grew across his face was irrepressible.
"Well, Joey," Sam propped her arms against her hips even though she was sitting, "You didn't tell me what a gentleman heis!"
"Yeah, he's the best," Joey murmured sarcastically under his breath.
The brunette, however, chose to ignore Sam's compliment. "Another Seven and Seven?"
Joey's eyes shot towards Kaiba's gratefully. "Yes, please."
"Coming right up," he pushed back his seat, even though he could've let the waitress come by. "Anything for you?"
Sam grinned, "Sex on the Beach sounds wonderful."
"I've heard good things." The CEO winked and suddenly Joey felt misplaced.
"Holy Shit!" She turned towards Joey the second Kaiba was out of range, "Way to leave out that he is beyond gorgeous."
The blonde's face twisted, half with envy, and half in thought. "It's really not something I stopped to consider."
"Well maybe you should start," she leaned back, glancing towards the tall, dark silhouette. "Because a little Japan looks like it could go a long way."
"Uhm," Joey stared, his medicine only falling around the simplest version of the concept. "Not entirely sure what you're trying to say…but I don't think I want to know."
"Oh you definitively don't," she grinned.
He shook his head, "Shut up." It was the most constant phrase he'd used that day.
"I'm mostly teasing," she scooted closer. "But he really doesn't seem that bad, and you guys hardly seem like enemies."
"He's just in a good mood today," Joey stated factually, pulling the information straight out of his ass.
"Defensiiiive," Sam sang outwardly, grinning that coy-girly smile.
"Who's defensive?" Demanded Kaiba as he held three drinks in a lopsided tri-force.
The angle of her smile developed more inquisitively as her eyes drank in the situation almost as effortlessly as Kaiba. "Apparently both of you."
"No, no," Kaiba shook his head, "We already had this discussion earlier, Wheeler."
"Don't shoot," Joey raised his hands defenselessly. "I just wanted a drink."
"Well here you go alchy," a glass slid with in a centimeter of his hand, but the comment did some minor damage.
"Don't call me that," Joey spoke in an even tone, taking a sip, and then feeling stupid. "Ever."
The other two seemed to catch the hostile evenness within seconds of each other.
"New subject!" Sam announced.
While Kaiba overlapped her with, "Anyyyways."
Joey supposed that should have made him grateful, but their sense of unison threw a curve ball that hit him in the gut and knocked the wind right out of him. Sighing, the drink in his hand grew heavier with each sip, and he was trying hard not to compare himself to his father. If he got drunk and upset, if he fell victim to genetics, it was over, and he couldn't risk the only two friends he had…well friend and acquaintance Joey corrected his optimistically induced lapse in accuracy.
The division between casual and personal threw another dimension of separation between the blonde and his companions. It had been five whole seconds and Sam was already getting a version of Kaiba he'd never seen. It was as if Joey was the only one who wasn't worthy of the upgrade, and his already territorial nature was sprouting little seeds of jealousy.
Watching them both with an immature commentary going through his head, the blonde was unaware that envy and alcohol were increasing in a positive correlation. Good thing I'm still right here, Joey folded his arms, trying to figure out what was so great about Kaiba anyways. It shouldn't have bothered him the slightest, but Sam's immediate attraction felt like a conflict of loyalty, and left him feeling isolated and unwilling to speak up…
No one had ever said it in so many words, but Joey always felt like he was constantly compared with the CEO—a comparison that he seldom gained the upper hand in. Although he supposed it was really only himself who juxtaposed them together, but it simply stood to make everything worse. Slowly but surely, the Alprazolam armor sunk beneath the Seven and Seven, and Joey's consciousness swam through the overcast shadows he felt the brunette shrouded him in. The weightlessness became water-logged, and the comfort grew heavy and burdensome under the weight he found himself unwilling and unable to support.
"Jesus, Wheeler shut the fuck up already."
"Seriously Japan," Sam added in sync with the sarcastic rhythm.
Joey stirred the little red straw in his glass, "My bad I was just—"
"Thinking too much?" Kaiba offered with a half smile.
Joey pulled his bottom lip inward with his teeth nodding as they drew Sam's attention around them unintentionally.
"Try this instead," the brunette posed considerately, "Vodka always makes me angry."
"I'm not angry," he tried to insist.
"Because I can see the big smile on your face."
Grumbling in defeat, Joey reached forward, brushing the length of Kaiba's fingers as they overlapped, unfolded, and slid back after a delayed reaction of unfamiliar contact. Swishing the dark, unusual flavor in a circular motion beneath his nose inquiringly, Joey drew in a sharp aroma.
"It's not wine," the other boy proceeded to warn him, "It's never going to smell any sweeter."
"What is it again?" Joey broke focus, unable to retrace his short-term memory.
Kaiba leaned back and replaced the space behind his head with both hands, "Why, my dear friend Jack Daniels of course."
"Jesus—" the blonde retracted, "—Christ does that burn."
"Feels good though, right?"
"Yeah, kind of," Joey admitted.
I guess I didn't fall far from the tree Dad, he could hear the bottles crashing all around him, and it seems we've made a mutual friend on the way down. Sighing, he surrendered the drink back to Seto, but the brunette refused it.
"Nah, it's alright. Go ahead, you finish it." You look like you need it way more than I do, he added sadly in silence.
"Thanks," both hands rose the cup to his lips, trying to count how many times he'd found himself saying it to the CEO lately. From hostile to playful to an alternate universe, they seemed to lose all consistency in such a short period. The realization threatened Kaiba's heart, but threw his brain into constant motion.
"Anytime," his eyes flinched, withdrawing the sentiment under the pretext of forced pleasantries.
That didn't bother Joey though, Kaiba couldn't always compute the circumstances, and he had noticed the subtle pauses and withdrawals withheld some level of communication between them. As persistently as he attempted, Joey knew that he'd never change that overnight.
"Should I leave you two alone?" Sam glanced back and forth from a texting screen. "I'm catching a case of third wheel."
"What's wrong with three?" Joey shrugged, indirectly in avoidance.
"It's a crowd," she replied; the lilac in her eyes swirling mischievously through the smoke drifting from the cigarette Kaiba just lit instead of joining in.
"No," the whiskey redirected the clotting thoughts more fluidly, "It's a party."
Her eyebrows rose just like Mai's always did when he tried to circumvent, "Oh really?"
"He's right." Seto slipped in. "My party actually."
"Oh," the confirmation threw off her expectancy, replacing a lack of words with a long, steady drink to rethink it through.
"It's Kaiba's birthday," Joey filled in the blanks knowingly.
"Aw," she transitioned in half a second from silent to swooning, "And you got nervous, so you invited me a long?"
"What? No—" he stumbled immediately into an incomplete answer.
"Cold feet," Kaiba leaned towards her in an audible whisper.
"No feet!" Joey exclaimed without realizing how stupid it sounded.
"Well that's just silly," he grinned, endlessly amused by the sight of Joey rambling.
"This conversation is silly," the blonde argued, somewhere between flustered and unfocused.
"No you're silly," Sam joined in. "I already told you, you can't lie for shit."
"Or maybe you're just not as perceptive as you thought."
"Doubtful," Kaiba rose to her defense. "She's got you pegged Wheeler."
"Well, thanks for nothing."
The brunette hiccupped. "Don't get mad at me," he was grinning, "It's not my fault you're a shitty liar."
"How is any of this even relevant?" Joey exclaimed, covering his face behind his hands and muffling the sound of his voice.
"It's not really," Sam shrugged after a moment of considering, "You're just so easy to frazzle, I can't help it."
"Well, I hope everyone's thoroughly amused," his tone was flat and ill fitting.
"Okay, okay, enough," the executive interrupted, "It's a party remember? So what do you say we get out of here?" he suggested spontaneously, or so it seemed, on the surface level.
"And do what?" Joey asked as Kaiba shrugged
Sam grinned. "I've got an idea."
-.-.-.-.
Walking in the middle, with Sam and Kaiba falling somewhere at his sides, the three of them proceeded through unfamiliar territory as they stumbled out after another round or four of drinks. Guiding the boys along in drunken misdirection, Sam occasionally slanted off to her right or into Joey's shoulder to designate turning points.
After what seemed like forever and no time at all, the next instance Joey was still enough to take in the detail, they were in the center of a deep ravine; trying hopelessly to balance on the arms of a little wooden bridge that connected the uneven protrusions of land beneath them.
"Why is there a bridge here?" Kaiba implored, hiccupping as he stared at the lack of depth between the boards and the ground a few inches below that.
"Oh y'know," Joey slurred, "Just decoration."
"It's so dark!" the brunette leaned backward, pointing out the obvious left and right with such blank fascination that Joey decided drunk Kaiba was pretty worth it so far.
"So let's light up," Sam grinned, fiddling with a familiar zipper pouch.
Eyebrows furrowing, Kaiba pulled himself back upright and sniffed the air curiously as if he were tracking. "Oh, yes?" he asked bright-eyed, already taking the object from her hands.
"No fucking way," Joey exclaimed as he watched Kaiba hit the bowl Sam packed in total disbelief.
The brunette glanced up from behind the pipe with his eyes back in their sly, cat like slant, knowing full well it was directed towards him. Holding the smoke in expertly, one of Kaiba's hands formed a fist against his lips while the other singled Joey to hold on.
"I can not believe I'm seeing this," Joey's voice rose and fell unevenly with the alcohol, glancing around the darkness as if to seek sound effects from some invisible audience.
Instead Kaiba leaned forward even further and blew the thick, cloud of smoke in Joey's face, "Surprised?" he slurred ever so slightly.
Joey seemed to gravitate outward as well, almost losing his balance as he tried to mimic the way Kaiba held himself in place, "My mind is fucking blown right now."
"What did I tell you? I'm not who you think I am."
"Dun-dun-dun-dunnn," Sam chimed in with dramatic sound effects, diffusing the seriousness they could've slipped into so easily in their inebriation.
Joey played dumb. "Y'mean like Clark Kent?"
"Well I am pretty super."
"Super gay."
"And you can be Wonder Dog," the brunette continued to hiccup, oblivious that anyone beside himself was speaking.
The lighter rose to the half charred circle of smashed together weed in the face of the bowl, burning out the left over greenery in a deep inhale. "Or—not—," he released in non-fluctuating fragments as he held the smoke deep in his lungs.
Sam snatched the bowl from Joey's unproductively motionless fingers, "Just get married already," she laughed.
"Joey didn't invite you to the wedding?" Kaiba asked in such convincing confusion that it took the blonde's intoxicated brain a moment to process the sarcasm.
"Surprise motherfuckers!" Joey shouted, missing any sort of punch line by a mile and causing all three of them to burst out laughing.
"Seriously you two," she shook her head, passing along the next pack to Kaiba when she finished. "You two," she repeated in emphasis, trying almost as hard as they did to put the rest into words.
"Us two." Kaiba nodded sternly in mock-confirmation, trying not to laugh.
"You two," she gave in with a third repetition.
"Us what?" Joey asked impatiently.
"You two," she began again, her chest rising with light-hearted frustration at the lack of formation on her lips, "Are—"
"Take a deep breath," the brunette instructed as he did the same.
"—so gay for each other!" she exclaimed, as the words pushed the smoke right back out of Seto's lungs in a blinding fit of coughing.
"So happy togetherrrr," Joey broke off in song, his mind latching onto words rather than their implications. "What?" he asked when Sam's face twisted in a what the fuck…? spiral of features, "Gay—happy—musical number—get it?"
"Wait," the brunette caught his breath, "Where did musical numbers come from?"
"From the jukebox over there," Sam kicked one leg out at Joey.
"Americans," Kaiba rose one hand parallel to his cheek in order to block Sam's view of his face as he shook his head humorously, gesturing his pointer finger towards her. "They think they know everything."
Her face fell evenly, but under the playful direction of the substances mingling in her blood stream. "Japanese people," she leaned forward in an obvious echo, "They have no idea what they're talking about."
"Yeah, that's why we make all your shit for you," Kaiba laughed, taking pride in his diversity.
"We're Japanese not Chinese Kaiba."
"Same difference," the brunette muttered as his lips collided with the cigarette balancing crookedly between them.
One of Sam's hands rose to her chest proudly, "He's practically American."
"We are Americans now," Joey broke into the overlooked realization.
Kaiba caught the contemplation as effortlessly as it was released, "Well technically at least."
"So random," he reached obliviously outward towards Kaiba's outstretched arm, retrieving the bowl in a mindless motion.
"So random," the brunette agreed without needing Joey to expand to know what was going through his head.
"Do you really not see this?" Her eyes broke back and forth between the both of them, "You guys are like scarily in sync."
"Insync?" Joey asked, mishearing the words as the trifecta of substances continued to cloud his memory like a cancerous cell.
"The band?" Kaiba's face scrunched up in confusion.
"Yeah, the 90's boy band," ruby-red eyes offset the purple in her eyes as she rolled them back, blurring, and then bringing them into focus as she shifted realistically along. "No, you morons. I meant you two, as in the both of you, you're in sync with each other."
Both boys stared immediately up at the other with scrunched up smiles and cheeks pulled upward to one side as they framed the inaccuracy in their faces.
"See!" She pointed, "You're doing it right now."
"Me thinks you've smoked enough m'lady," Kaiba turned to her with a side smile and an unnecessarily archaic parlance.
"Well me thinks I haven't smoked enough," Joey responded, both hands creeping slowly for the piece resting lazily in the brunette's left hand as if they couldn't see.
"Well I think that this is the twenty first century," her hands repositioned on her hips, "And we shouldn't talk like we're in A Midsummer Night's Dream."
"Great play," Kaiba's fist fell against his open palm in emphasis.
Joey exhaled disbelievingly. "You like Shakespeare?"
"You know who Shakespeare is?" the brunette mirrored the dumbstruck expression across from him.
"I'm not that stupid."
Kaiba shrugged, "I never said you were."
Sam sighed, shaking her head to herself, "I'm not even sure why I'm still here."
"IIII know why," Joey chanted, his eyebrows rising and falling mischievously towards the other boy.
"You don't even know where you are right now," she grinned, expertly dodging the banter.
"Sure I do," Joey glanced around at the darkness that extended all around them, "With some pretty cool kids."
"Hah-hah."
"What's so funny Kaiba?"
"Just everything," he hiccupped, "that comes out of your mouth."
"You really aren't seeing this shit?" Sam exclaimed, continuously bringing the topic back in conversation.
Joey was kicking his legs back and forth beneath the railing that had begun to make his backside sore, "We've had years of experience."
"Dedicated rivalry," Kaiba shook his head in confirmation.
"Epic rivalry," Joey corrected in the Mr. Movie voice.
"So, you began finishing each others sentences?" she asked blatantly.
"We do not," both of their voices collided within a five second lapse of each other.
She grinned and slipped from her spot, "Me thinks you do."
"Me thinks I'm pretty drunk," Joey fell back into the vernacular as his feet hit the bridge with a thump.
"Me thinks," several arms unfolded over Kaiba's head simultaneously with a deep yawn, "It's time to go home."
As they began their ascent up the mismatched, makeshift staircase of rocks and two by fours, Sam guided them with her cell phone stretched out, constantly stumbling when she stopped to press the button that re-illuminated the screen. More than half way up the side of the ravine, Joey caught his foot beneath an exposed thicket of roots that sent him lunging forward into a domino effect. Kaiba's whole body knocked over with a cut off "Jesus—"before he landed face first in dirt.
Several slanted eyes turned backward as she held the phone up to her face, squinting to locate the bodies that were trying to untangle from their little tumble, "Are you guys okay?"
"Define okay," Kaiba asked, lifting his torso in a single movement, and spitting away at the dirt.
"Mmmm," Joey released an immature whining sound from somewhere seconds below, remaining unmoved.
"What are you doing," the brunette nudged him with his foot as if he were a dead animal.
"Emb—racing my—fall," Joey said into the ground.
"Get up," Kaiba pulled at one of his arms, "I'm getting embarrassed for you."
Joey yanked himself from the other's grip, pulling himself to a sitting position before standing and brushing away the clumps of mud and leaves. "God only knows what all these trees must be thinking!" He feigned dramatically.
"Sometimes I have no idea where you get this stuff from," Kaiba yawned.
"Me either," the blonde sighed, bracing his new bruises for the remainder of the climb.
Before long they had delivered Sam safely back to her apartment; well, she pretty much delivered herself, but they walked along; well, tripped and stumbled.
"You sure you guys know how to get back?"
"I think we can figure it out," Kaiba turned Joey back in the right direction.
"Bye!" Joey shouted up to her, miscalculating the distance through his disjoining vision.
"Shhh," the brunette tugged Joey's shirt to shut him up.
"Sorry," Joey whispered too quietly this time, causing Kaiba to roll his eyes as he dragged him along by the sleeve.
The street outstretched before them in a vast tangle of turn lanes and traffic lights that all seemed to look the same to Kaiba. Usually he was more directionally inclined, but throwing weed into the mix had softened the sharp edges of his attention span ever so slightly enough to throw off his sense of awareness, and Joey dragged his feet impatiently behind. With half his body falling forward, the blonde wouldn't stop moaning and groaning about how much farther, how much farther? And the brunette had begun to wonder himself as he tried to remap the street signs in front of them, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar names of trees and presidents that designated where he was going.
"Jackson or Jefferson?" Kaiba yawned.
"Is it my turn again?" the blonde exhaled in exhaustion, glancing back and forth, pretending there was anything familiar about the adjacent street corners as he weighed them against each other. "Jackson," he said finally.
"Final answer?"
"Yes, Regis."
"Let's hope you're right," he replied, hiccupping in mid yawn as they continued their would you rather quest between each intersection they passed through.
"Okay," blue eyes squinted and glanced through the dark to catch the reflective surfaces of green and white street signs, "Capitol or Lynwood?" he asked himself aloud before shaking his head and going towards Capitol.
"Wait!" Joey caught up, "Did you say Lynwood?"
"Yeah, why?" the brunette turned back, gaining more energy at the prospect of progress, "Please tell me you know where we are."
"I think," Joey leaned to peer down the empty pavement, "I think we're right by my place."
"Oh thank. fucking. god," Kaiba released the well-awaited sigh of relief. "For real though," the brunette warned, "I seriously might kill you if you don't let me spend the night."
Joey's face curdled at the concept of seeing Kaiba try to adjust to such an unfamiliar habitat, and more specifically, to the disheveled state he constantly left his apartment in. "I mean I guess so…"
"Good enough for me," Kaiba made the executive decision before Joey had the chance to raise protest.
"Yeah, you say that now…" Joey rubbed the back of his neck nervously as they began the final, fifteen-minute stretch; both of them so sleep deprived and so worn down from all they'd ingested that neither had taken the time to draw the obvious parallel between how far they'd come since that morning.
They had started the day out separately, and now they were ending it together—when they had met up they'd been nervous and distant, and now they were nervous and attached at the hip, their feet falling in sync from the left to the right, forwards and backwards all the way up to Joey's front door.
Leaning against the frame, eyes half open, and struggling to fit the key into the lock properly; Joey reopened the doorway between the previous distances with a simple yawn. "So, did you have a good birthday?"
"Holy shit it's my birthday!" Kaiba stopped dead in his tracks, having honestly forgotten all about it.
Joey grinned sleepily. "You would forget your own birthday on your birthday."
Strands of chocolate brown shook steadily across his forehead and his head shook disbelievingly from side to side, but unable to hide the small smile that spread across his lips so innocently that Joey thought he'd fallen in love for a second. Not with the brunette, but with the idea he could take Kaiba's mind off something so effortlessly.
"Is that good or bad?" Joey opened the door, unable to determine what the silence the other boy left meant.
"It's…" Kaiba paused, "It's a good thing," the words formed unfamiliarly in the softened, slurring sounds of his breathing. "…I had…I had fun."
The confession jumpstarted the beat in Joey's chest and the alcohol turned him around excitedly, "Really? You mean it?"
"Yeah," a smile formed halfway before more fixed features fell over it, but the persistent personalization in his voice remained unwavering, "You really surprised me today," he rested his eyes, taking a seat at the edge of the air mattress without hesitance this time.
Joey's eyes began to drop downward under the pressure of sleep he'd been fighting off, but his chest started creating riffs in the rhythm of the most pleasant panic attack he'd ever had. Palpitating slightly offbeat, the sharp twisting only excited his central nervous system, and pulled him magnetically towards the source of friction. Towards the warmth that radiated through the cold-drafty apartment they were both about to spend the night in, and sat down gingerly a good foot away.
"Seriously though…I want to say thanks," Kaiba spoke with both eyes closed, although his lack of sleep wasn't the reason; the inability to look at Joey as he said it, however, was; but the words slipped out so easily when he just let the rest disappear. "I wouldn't have usually done this."
"I know." Joey replied softly, averting his eyes as well, unaware that the other's had reopened. "I just wanted to see you happier."
It was one of those simple things Joey always seemed to say that froze Kaiba's jaw just as soon as it opened, and he felt something genuinely painful about how kindly Joey was treating him. Something threatening and long-awaited at the same time; something scarier then his birthday or even bereavement—and that something was how honest Joey could be without trying or even thinking, and how complex it became for him to dissect so much simplicity into anything other than exactly what it was.
"Why?"
"Cause you're not such an asshole," Joey smiled, still retaining the boyishly flushed face left over from the drunk that still clung to his clothes, "and you're almost even kind of nice."
"Well I have more than one setting," Kaiba confirmed with a softened spitefulness in place of his typical force.
"You should try switching to them every once in awhile."
"Cigarette?" Kaiba circumvented.
Joey sighed, "Sure."
"Don't sound so disappointed."
"I'm not."
"Yes, you are," his eyes remained closed in distant focus, "I can hear it in your voice. Sam was right, you really are a terrible liar."
"And let me guess," Joey redirected the subject away from himself by reverting to their previous, more slighting interactions. "You're the best at lying."
Only to myself, Kaiba sighed.
"Sorry," Joey quickly apologized, mumbling it under his breath more so than in the brunette's direction.
"Don't be."
"Well, I am," he spoke up that time.
Kaiba leaned backward against the bed in a sigh. "I don't understand you."
Joey however had been paying more attention to the wrung around remains of the plastic bag he'd been carrying around all night, and let the brunette keep some of his words unchallenged for once.
Staring up into the backs of his eyelids, Kaiba awaited some sort of simple, confusing clarity to spill from the blonde as it usually did in an unexpected string of ordinary words. Instead he felt an almost weightless surface drop onto his stomach, waiting intriguingly for the executive to finally open his eyes.
His fingers found their way around the sides first, then the rest of him followed by repositioning until he was sitting next to Joey with a package no more than half an inch thick on his lap.
"I suck at wrapping," the blonde rushed nervously now that those eyes had reopened. "But I told you I got you a present…it's nothing fancy or anything."
The concept of receiving anything though was overwhelming and he felt like the Burgermeister when he gets the yo-yo in Santa Clause is Coming to Town; at first he didn't understand what he'd been given, and when he did it almost melted his heart how easily he'd forgotten part of himself. Staring down at the two soft cover booklets, the alcohol and the adderal were allowing the prickling in the corners of his eyes to form as his fingers clenched the surface of the simple green and white notebooks like were made of glass. It was so simple it was literally heartbreaking.
"I thought maybe you could use them for when you play piano," Joey explained into his twiddling thumbs as they encircled each other waiting, "I noticed there's one at your apartment too, so I thought you must really like it."
"I love it," he said unhindered, but Joey was unable to match the wavering drops in pitch to the correct emotion in Kaiba's eyes, which were still glued to the covers of the Manuscript Paper.
He couldn't even help it though, and it may have been the alcohol and the exhaustion, but he didn't even care. The notebooks were the right brand and everything; not that Joey had any possible way of knowing that, but they matched all the others he kept bound together beneath the second to last shelf in his closet. He'd had some of them since before he could form concrete memories, and he hadn't bought one since before he'd left Japan; so there was something eerily perfect in Joey's otherwise poor timing, and he realized that he was emerging twenty-three instead of six. The thought alone scared him twice as much as it had before it seemed impossible, but Joey must have pressed something in the right order because time became congruent and he felt the next word as if it were completely foreign.
Joey leaned forward cautiously, "Kaiba?"
The brunette, however, closed his eyes and clenched his fingers so tightly that they lost all circulation, and could no longer feel his mouth lose its hesitance, slipping up for the first time as his split personality fought for representation.
"That's…that's not even really my name you know…"
-.-.-.
:) reviews still appreciated; and review4review is still on the table!