Jupiter's_Magic: So sorry for the delay . Life has been busy! Anyway, I do not own yugioh. Please review?


"This was a memorable Fourth of July," Alister said dryly, well aware that he was in fact alone at the moment.

The redhead was currently looking at his singed hair in the living room mirror, using his hands gingerly; earlier that evening Valon and Ember had accidentally launched an additional firework that had inadvertently gone straight to Lola. Alister had instinctively jumped in front of Lola and grabbed the thing before it could explode and had managed to toss it away, but as a result the firecracker had burned his hands.

It was probably midnight by now, he realized as he glanced around the room. Raphael had gone to bed early that evening and Valon was down in with Ember in her lab, doing Heaven only knew what; Skye was in the kitchen working on some paperwork for something or another.

He jumped when he felt a pair of arms circle around his waist and he was about to perform a judo flip before a familiar voice whispered, "Take it easy, Ninja Man, it's me."

"Dear God, Lola, I thought you were a burglar or something. How did you get in here?" he asked, turning his head to look down at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Through the window," she replied nonchalantly as she released him. "I told Skye that you guys need to lock your windows. Some nutcase is going to break in here one day and how'll they get in? Through the windows."

"Not that I'm not flattered that you broke in to see me, but why are you here? I thought you went home."

She looked down, a blush appearing on her face. "To thank you," she whispered. "That fire cracker was going to—"

Alister rolled his eyes. "What kind of man lets a firework hit the girl he's dating?

Lola's face turned bright red as she looked into his gray eyes and she bit her lip. Alister was suddenly quite aware that they were standing quite close to each other and instinctively found himself leaning forward; Lola was doing the same and her breathing was a bit heavy as she took a step closer—

"Best friend walking through," Skye announced as she passed the couple, grinning as the pair instantly took several steps back. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" she called over her shoulder in a sing-song voice, making her way up the stairs and turning the stair lights off.

Lola cleared her throat embarrassedly. "So, uh, your hands are okay?"

"Perfectly fine," Alister clarified, keeping his distance.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," she said softly.

"As I've said before, what kind of man lets a rogue firecracker hit the girl he's dating?"

There was an awkward pause as the two of them stared at each other, and then Lola moved forward to hug him. Alister returned it but when he looked down it was to find Lola's face dangerously close to his; the two of them were leaning forward when the sound of a cell phone broke the silence, effectively causing them to separate once again.

Lola took out her phone and glanced at it, her face darkening when she saw who the text was from. "Go to sleep, Skyler!" Lola hissed indignantly, directing this statement at the stairs.

Skye's laughter filtered from the upstairs, which was followed by the sound of a door closing.

"She's not going to sleep until I leave," Lola grumbled. "So…I'll talk to you later," she finished awkwardly, her eyes holding a wistful light in them.

Alister watched Lola go through the window, deciding he was annoyed with Skye as he went up the stairs to his room.


"Morning Alister!" Skye exclaimed, skipping down the stairs and sliding into the kitchen.

All she got in reply was a frosty glare from the redhead.

"What?" she questioned, tilting her head.

"Lola and I were having a moment and you ruined it," he said flatly.

"Oh come on! I was just teasing you guys," Skye said exasperatedly. "You tease Raphael all the time about him being with me."

"At least he knows when to shut up. Expect payback," he retorted, turning back to the pancakes he was making.

Sighing, Skye left the kitchen and went back upstairs to make her bed; she had forgotten to do that and she was normally a tidy person.

She was finishing up when she heard the sound of someone falling down the stairs, followed by a familiar bout of laughter from a certain Australian. Curious, Skye left her room to see what had happened and went to the top of the stairs; when she saw the sight at the bottom of the staircase she couldn't stifle her laughter.

Raphael, who had apparently just woken up, had slipped down the stairs while going to the kitchen. What really made it funny, however, was the fact that Misha was perched on his head—Raphael had to have been carrying her at some point, because she highly doubted the cat had decided to sit on his head because she felt like it.

"Not funny," Raphael said, shooting her an annoyed expression when she came down in front of him.

"It's cute!" Skye said, taking out her cell phone and snapping a picture in the same motion before continuing on her way.

Raphael pulled the cat off his head gently and set Misha down before following after Skye, easily scooping her into his arms and carrying her into the kitchen. "Just don't post it anywhere online and I'll be content."

"Does sending the picture to Lola via text count?" she teased.

"…Possibly."

"Well, too late," she giggled. "What are you going to do about it?"

Raphael arched an eyebrow. "I can do plenty," he retorted, kissing her forehead as he set her on the counter top. "I'm just too polite to do much except for this," he continued, leaning in closer to—

"Roommate walking by. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Alister commented sarcastically, opening the fridge and grabbing a water bottle.

Skye scowled. "No fair using my words against me," she pouted, folding her arms as Raphael moved off.

"Should have thought about that last night," the redhead replied bluntly, walking out of the kitchen once more.

Raphael raised his eyebrow. "What was that about?"

"I interrupted Alister and Lola's big 'we're totally about to kiss' moment and I think he's mad at me."

Raphael's other eyebrow rose. "You think?" he asked.

"Oh hush," she said affectionately, jumping off the counter and lightly smacking his shoulder.

"Why would you interrupt them, anyways?" Raphael continued. "Chances were that's probably the first time they had one of those moments."

"Alister always makes fun of us," Skye pointed out. "He played with fire, he got burned."

"Do note that saying can go both ways, Skye," he replied absently. "Not to mention that Alister tends to find rather violent ways of getting revenge on those who antagonize him."

"…Oh."


Raphael's POV

Early afternoon found us lounging around the house, each doing something a little different. Alister was with Lola in the kitchen – she was teaching him how to make sopapillos; judging by the fact that I'd seen her bringing over a few tortillas and other miscellaneous ingredients I could assume we were having Mexican for dinner.

Valon was playing video games with Ember (rather violent ones involving guns, I noticed). I was sitting in my recliner with Misha in my lap, keeping an eye on Skye as I read; it was her turn to dust the furniture and currently she was dusting the chandelier in the front hall, perched precariously on a ladder.

There was a good reason that I was keeping an eye on her. Her ladder was positioned next to the front door; the first time anyone opened it Skye would tumble off the ladder. I'd tried getting her to let me dust the chandelier, but she'd shooed me away ("You're cute when you're being protective, but I'm a big girl and I can get it," had been her reply to my offer).

Can you blame me, though? She'll never hear me admit it, but she's accident prone—I'm justified in my concern.

And as it turned out, I had every right to be worried.

"Howdy folks!" called Declan as he casually pushed the door open.

I saw Skye fall from the corner of my eye and I rose to my feet quickly. Lucky for her, though, she'd grabbed onto the chandelier as the ladder fell and now dangled from the light fixture; Jasper, who had been near the ladder dozing, was now barking furiously at her brother.

I managed to grab the lower half of her flailing body (and ignoring the kicks to my stomach that came as a result) and she let go. I set her down and gave her a quick once over with my eyes to make sure that she was okay, but I needn't have worried—she was already storming to her brother.

"You utter jerk! It didn't occur to you that you should knock?" she snapped furiously. "I almost broke my neck!"

"I didn't think you'd be right—OW SKYE QUIT BEATING ME!" Declan yelped shielding his face as his sister started beating him with her fists.

I reached over and tugged her away from Declan before she killed him (and at that rate she was going I wouldn't doubt it for a second). This resulted in her starting to kick the air and hitting me a few times, not that it bothered me—being as burly as I am has its perks. "Skyler, calm down."

"Geez, sis, don't take my head off," muttered Declan, flinching when she shook her fist at him. He cleared his throat. "I didn't bother knocking because I know you guys never lock your door."

"It's polite to knock anyways!" she snarled, struggling against me.

Declan looked at me appreciatively and whistled. "I knew Skye having a boyfriend like you would come in handy one day," he commented.

"Gee, thanks," I replied dryly. "What brings you over here?"

"Oh yeah, nearly had that reason beaten out of me by Crazy over there. I was cleaning out the attic and I found our high school yearbooks!" he said brightly, lifting a book up for Skye's inspection.

"Joy to the freaking world," she grumbled, but at least she stopped kicking me and I set her down.

"You could have found a way to warn anyone outside that you were on a ladder right inside the door!" said Declan defensively.

"I did! I taped a sign to the door!" Skye snapped indignantly.

"You mean this sign?" asked Alister innocently as he materialized in the doorway, holding up a paper with Skye's handwriting on it in bold, red ink. "Dear me, how on earth did this get in my possession?"

"You fiend!" Skye shrieked, starting to run at Alister. The redhead promptly disappeared from view, my girlfriend hot in pursuit. "Don't forget payback's are a bitch!"

Declan rolled his eyes. "At least it's him and not me," he commented, shaking his head pityingly at the retreating redhead.

"Why did you bring the yearbook over?" I asked curiously, gesturing to the book.

"I was bored and wanted to humiliate Skye by showing you what she looked like in high school," he shrugged. "She always gets touchy about it because she thinks she looks like a dweeb. She doesn't, though."

"Did you just say yearbook?" Valon asked, his head peering around the corner of the basement doorframe. "Lemme see, lemme see!"

I reached over and snagged the book from Declan before he could open it. "We'll look at it later," I told him. I'd let Skye decide if she wanted us to look at her pictures—for now, it would be best not to let Valon look at it.


Normal POV

A few hours later Declan had gone back home and things around the house had settled down—well, almost. Skye's phone had not stopped ringing for the past half hour and it clearly was getting on her nerves; what made things stranger was that the phone calls were all from random strangers.

"This is annoying," Skye snapped furiously, glaring at her phone. "How the hell did these people get my number?"

"Internet?" Raphael replied absently, shrugging his shoulders. This earned him a glare from his girlfriend.

"Has her phone stopped ringing yet?" Alister asked, coming from his room and grabbing a book. "It's getting on my last nerves."

Raphael noted that the other biker did not look bothered in the slightest—on the contrary, he looked like the cat who swallowed the canary.

Skyler did not notice this look on Alister's face, though—her phone started ringing again. "Son of a bitch!"

She grabbed the phone and jabbed a button viciously. "Hi! This is Skyler Kaiba! I actually can come to the phone right now with a very special message just for you!" she snarled into the phone.

"Skyler, hang up," chided Raphael, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't do something you'll regret."

Skye groaned but complied. "Sorry. I don't know what got into me," she said with a tired sigh, leaning back into the sofa cushions.

"Insanity," Alister replied with a smirk.

Raphael shook his head and got up from his recliner, heading into the office; he'd caught a glimpse of the silent conversation being transmitted via Skye's and Alister's eyes and didn't want to stick around to find out what was coming next.


Later on that evening Alister was calmly listening to his music and enjoying the quiet of the house; Valon had claimed to be feeling sick and had actually gone to bed early (surprising, to say the least, but it attested to how the teenager was feeling) and he was sitting downstairs with Raphael and Skye at the moment. His older friend was reading a book and Skye had fallen asleep curled up next to him.

The tranquility, of course, did not last.

"We interrupt your regularly scheduled musical selection with a very important announcement," Skye's voice announced through his headphones, causing Alister to sit up in some alarm. "Never engage in a war with a Kaiba—we have the tendency to go nuclear. Now sit back, relax and enjoy the melodious sound of me screaming in your ear."

With that parting statement a high pitched shriek blasted out of the headphones, causing Alister to curse and yank the headphones out of his ears; he was certain that the Raphael and Skye had both heard it, judging by the blond's startled look and Skye's all too innocent expression on her sleeping face.

Alister directed a gray eyed glare at the girl. "Okay, kid, that was cute," he began, "But is that all you got?"

At that point his phone started to ring and the red-haired biker blinked, reaching for the device; a glance at the caller ID told him that Lola was calling. He picked it up and opened his mouth to answer—

—and Skye's scream filtered through the phone's speaker.

Alister hung up with a sour expression on his face and looked directly at Skye; he knew she was not asleep. "All right Skyler—it's on."


And that was it. The prank used is rightfully owned by the creators of Criminal Minds. (I got it from their recent episode.)

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