IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!! - This is the Yu-Gi-Oh! Yaoi portion of the Shipping List in order. Be forewarned. Some "pairings" will not be fluffy and cute. But they will all, hopefully, be believable. Rating's will vary.
Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! is the intellectual property of Kazuki Takahashi
Author's Notes: Happy Valentine's Day, readers. I, in addition to updating this, will be doing nothing, not even dueling since nobody bothered to show up to the local card shop today but me. I sincerely wish all of you a better and happier day than I will be having.
Rating: G
Yu-Gi-Oh! Shipping List #28 : "One Real Smile"
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Bittershipping (Pegasus x Hiroto)
Pegasus J. Crawford was the Duke of Somewhere Or Other, if Honda remembered correctly. He was hosting a grand ball at his estate for the heck of it so of course Jounouchi, whose lover was also a schmuck was invited and given that, Honda had decided to tag along, because of course, Jounouchi's schmuck could only be counted on to mingle and leave Jounouchi to fend for himself at Crawford's mercy.
Honda had met Pegasus once before, at some other function he had promptly forgotten. The only thing Honda had remembered clearly about the event, was that Pegasus J. Crawford was a snake in the grass who absolutely could not be trusted within fifteen feet of Jounouchi who, despite what he may have thought of himself, was not only ruggedly handsome in a male perspective, but also quite pretty when he smiled and stupid just to wrap it all in a pretty bow.
Honda stared out at the slowly moving crowd through half lidded brown eyes. Jounouchi was in the bathroom where Honda was relatively sure he was safe as society's biggest flirt was at one end of the room, twirling long strands of jet black hair around a slender finger as he sweet talked one of the upper-class girls and the second biggest - Pegasus himself, was at the other end. Seto was glaring at him from a group of businessmen nearby and Honda had to smirk back. At least Jounouchi wasn't bored to tears at this party.
Honda was too busy making Seto mad to notice Pegasus approaching him until the man was directly in front of him, one eyebrow lifted gracefully toward his hairline and a smile playing in his eyes.
"I see you are enjoying my little soiree."
Honda frowned in return to the too-friendly smile. "Extravagant as always, I'm sure." he muttered; nodded in false polite fashion.
The smile became a grin. "I noticed that you are attending with a friend…but perhaps, you are not comfortable here? I would hate to think that one of my guests, however uninvited" he punctuated this point with an amused look that did not go unnoticed by Honda "might not be thoroughly enjoying himself."
"I assure you," Honda replied dryly "I am enjoying myself to the highest capacity available."
Pegasus actually laughed outright at that and after a moment of utter awkwardness on Honda's part, abruptly stopped, holding a finger in front of the brunette's nose. "Tut tut tut." he said, wagging the finger back and forth before his guest. "I absolutely insist that this boredom cannot continue. Why it would destroy my very pride as a host not to personally see to it that you find some interest here…now that I've witnessed that horrible expression personally. Why, you can hardly expect me not to!"
Honda blinked back, having completely been plowed over by that and, taking note of this, Pegasus slipped to his side, placing a firm hand at the brunette's back, giving him a light shove in the direction he wished to go. Honda frowned but didn't make a scene of it. Instead he responded verbally.
"I sincerely doubt, your lordship, that you own anything, alcoholic or otherwise, that is capable of doing what you intend." Honda could talk like a schmuck too, if he wanted to.
Pegasus just smiled companionably, clasping his hands behind his back as they walked.
"I find it quite admirable," he said at length, leading Honda up the winding staircase to overlook the party below them "that you would come just to occupy your fair-haired friend."
Honda took the bait, knowingly doing so out of sheer boredom and perhaps a sense that one should at least feign politeness to a party's host. "Yes well, he did not enjoy the last…soiree…he attended. And it wasn't like I had anything better to do." he added, letting a lack of breeding show without remorse, as he leaned on his arms against the railing.
"I didn't either, truth be told." Pegasus confessed, looking out on the guests with an unreadable expression that drew Honda's attention. "I hold these parties every so often, just as I'm beginning to feel as though I am the only person in existence. I enjoy watching them, being a part of them for a while, until they leave and I feel I am once more lacking in something I'm not sure they even brought to begin with." Pegasus smiled softly at Honda with eyes that were aimed at him but seemed to be looking through to the other side of him instead.
Honda remembered that he had heard once that Pegasus lived alone with his servants and often in extravagant houses in remote areas. He had no family and had lost a fiancé or a wife or girlfriend or some such person in the years passed. Honda averted his gaze, looking once more on the gathering below and now, now he could see nothing but the scene Pegasus saw, a world in which he was visiting and to which he would never belong. He wondered if it was the same for all the rich. Seto, he knew, had a terrible distaste for most of the people he was speaking to. He would never in his life have wed for money as his father had once wanted him to. It was a room full of fake people with fake smiles who had too much to know they really had nothing.
"Tell me," Pegasus said suddenly, in an obvious attempt to pull the subject back from the sky where it had been forgotten to float away like a balloon in the wake of sightseeing "have you tried the wine?"
Honda hesitated slightly. "I'm…not really a wine drinker." Pegasus, he also remembered, owned a winery and obviously took great pride in his product. But his statement did not deter Pegasus in the least.
"You will be once you taste what I've got up here." he stated happily and Honda groaned inwardly. That's why he hated these parties. Politeness could back you into a corner faster than a rabid dog in a back alley. "I keep the good stuff for myself of course," Pegasus was saying as he strolled away down the hallway, expecting Honda to follow which of course, he did. "nothing like what's downstairs. In fact, I picked the grapes for these bottles personally." Honda rolled his eyes behind Pegasus at how much spare time the other man must have to be spending it picking grapes all day when he undoubtedly hired people to do that for him. Only Seto Kaiba was neurotic enough to be that much of a perfectionist.
Pegasus opened the door of his study for them and bid Honda to take a seat while he busied himself with pouring the wine from his liquor cabinet. There was a couch and two leather arm chairs to chose from so Honda sat in one of the chairs and took the opportunity to look around.
It was an ordinary study for the most part; a large oaken desk backed by large paneled windows, shelves filled with books - fiction mostly, Honda noted, the chairs and couch and liquor cabinet… But what drew Honda's attention were the paintings. They covered every inch of available wall space and spilled over to rest against the walls on the floor and even hung from nails driven into the shelves of the bookcases. They were dragons and fairies and knights and horrible monsters, oceans and forests and cityscapes that awed even Honda who had never held any more interest in art than he had in wine.
"Do you like them?" Pegasus asked conversationally, holding a champagne glass out for the brunette and Honda looked back, the awe clear on his face.
"Did you…paint all these?"
Pegasus nodded as Honda accepted the glass and took the other armchair across from him. "Yes. I often paint to pass the time. Though I've never sold any. They've begun to pile up I suppose." Pegasus smiled with light laughter in his eyes.
"They're very good." Honda consented, taking a drink of the wine in his glass.
When Honda told Pegasus that the wine, too, was good, better than that downstairs, it was only a slight embellishment and perhaps Pegasus could tell because although he took Honda's critique with absolute glee, he also offered him stronger drinks to follow, rather than more of his wine. Gin in a champagne glass, Honda found, did not make one drunk any slower than out of a shot glass and Honda did not often get drunk so it was possible that it snuck up on him because he remembered sharing it with the silver haired socialite and moving to the couch where it was far more comfortable to talk about nothing and everything and thinking, when Pegasus asked if he might rest his head on Honda's lap for a moment while the room settled, that there certainly couldn't be any better place for it.
He also remembered that when Jounouchi threw the door open, having been looking for him for quite some time, and froze there with an expression that clearly said he really had no idea what to say, that he had done nothing more than offer Jounouchi the bottle of gin. He had not even bothered to remove his fingers from the silken strands he had lost them in.
Vaguely, Honda remembered telling Pegasus, as Jounouchi was escorting him to the car, that he had had a wonderful time and he knew beyond a doubt that he had been far too drunk to be polite. Pegasus' smile, he remembered, was absolutely radiant when it was real.
Post whatevers: This was the first actual AU, wasn't it? I was trying not to do AUs for this but there are just so many pairings that I decided it would be more fun to do a few AUs, since I like AUs sometimes. Next up is Pandora (Arcana) x Yugi. As always, if you liked, please review. Ja!
