A/N: So this is long coming. I had 3/4ths of it written and sitting on my computer for a while because I got busy at school. So finally, this is here. Almost five thousand words so its fairly lengthy. Hopefully not boring X3. Well, without further adieu...

Chapter 20.

After so many hours, the feeling of blood on his forehead and seeping down his nose wasn't so strange a feeling as it was when he first experienced it. Jou rolled his head around, looking at the bland walls and then up to the clock. He thought that enough crime dramas told him they didn't have a clock in an interrogation room to stress out the interviewee, but then again, he couldn't trust everything he saw on television.

Jou leaned forward and licked his thumb, rubbing where he could feel that blood had dried and was ready to flake off. As he leaned forward, he caught sight of the officer that had been interrogating him for the last two hours. He wasn't as harsh as the last, but Jou could already tell the good cop-bad cop routine that was going on.

"Gonna say anythin'?" Jou mustered. The entire time, a coy, mocking smile was on the officer's face. Maybe he was attempting at looking sincere and worried, but he had yet to offer help with Jou's injuries.

"Let me go over this one more time," said the officer. His voice was loud, and with a headache growing behind his eyes, Jou flinched.

"Fine."

"You have been around Kaiba Seto since he had his accident several months ago?" The officer had a pencil tip against a legal pad and moved it over to another line of scribble.

"Yes."

"Why were you with Kaiba-san?"

"I was given a deal, which said I was ta blame, an' became his nurse while he needed it," Jou said. "'Least till I found out that I wasn't the one who did anythin'."

"Of course. And that made you angry, didn't it?"

Jou hated the question, because he realized he had worded his answer different every time, but every time it was the truth with a different spin. "Yes," Jou said. "I was angry at the time. I got mad because I was getting fucked."

"Did you consider any form of retaliation then?"

"No!" Jou leaned forward. "A million times: no. I never would hurt Mokuba. I would not take him over somethin' petty like a break-up," and he wasn't really sure why he called it that, but that was what it seemed like.

"What do you mean by 'break-up'?" The officer asked.

Jou lowered his head. The pain sloshed forward. "I was…involved with Kaiba after so long. Close quarters."

The officer wrote that down. It was probably the closest break of anything new that they had gotten out of Jou in hours, and likely it was the kind of connection that they were looking for. "What happened after that?"

"I left, real pissed. Then about…I dunno, like three days later or somethin', I came back 'cause I was returnin' somethin' of his that got mixed in with my stuff. We got'n another argument, then I left again. It stayed like that for a while till he started comin' into my place of work lookin' for a fix because of his injuries."

The officer nodded, his pencil going over a few more of the lines that had been written down prior. "Did that spark any thoughts in you, then? Did you think you could get close to him and then maybe exact some kind of revenge while he was weak?"

Jou shook his head, and immediately regretted it. It felt like that pain was just sloshing around behind his eyes, as if there was blood backed up in his nose and it was just sloshing around. He tried to suck it back and down on his throat. A coppery taste was in his saliva, but he wasn't sure if it was blood or not.

"No," Jou said. "I tried avoidin' him until a co-worker couldn't deal with him no more. So I tried to help. He was tryin' ta walk again. Through that, we were close and intimate again 'cause I was holdin' onto him and all that junk. An' we kinda started up again till he started gettin' worse."

"How was he getting worse?"

Jou shrugged. "Withdrawin'. He jus'…freaked out one day after a surgery an' then froze as if nothin' mattered."

"Froze? Just stopped? No worries about family or work anything like that?"

Jou shrugged. "Mental stuff is different. Can't always be explained why people go catatonic. They jus' do. Probably he's got internal conflict, an' this ain't helpin' him that Mokuba is gone. I wanna help him as much as the next person."

The officer smiled and set his pencil down. Jou didn't like the smile; it didn't seem like he was actually happy. "Which is what we're trying to solve, but you haven't been cooperative."

"I've been perfectly cooperative till ya bashed my head into the fuckin' table!" Jou growled. "Then I stopped givin' a fuck! This is less 'bout Kaib' an' more about keepin' a fuckin' reputation. I dunno know where Mokuba is, and I haven't done a thing to him!"

The cop was still, blinking a few times and leaning forward, looking Jou in the eye. Jou was breathing heavily after going off in his tangent. He pressed his face in his hands and squeezed his eyes closed. He heard the door open. His hands lowered and balled into fists, his nerves jumping at the very thought.

Before he could react, his face was in the table again. Hard. The world blacked out for a second, and his mind swam back to consciousness.

Fuck….

Jou's head lulled back and the cut on his forehead had opened back up. There was blood pooling on his upper lip; it was hard to breath from his nose, and he sucked in a deep breath of air. "You have to take me ta…ta the pros'cuter."

"You still got another 36 hours for that, Jounouchi," the officer from behind him said. "And we still have questions."

"I ain't answerin' nothin'."

His hair was tugged again, but he wasn't going without a fight. He flung forward, gripping the table and fighting the sear of the hairs being pulled. He slipped down out of the chair and pushed it into the officer. Once he was free, he started crawling away, trying to get on all fours. He grabbed the table and yanked himself up, grabbing the chair he had pushed and backing up.

It was a flimsy defense, using a chair, but it was all Jou had. His heart was hammering against his sternum, and the chair loosened as his palms.

The two officers stood on the defense as well. When Jou's back hit the wall, his entire body shook violently. He had to reclaim the chair and pull it close to him. But the police were already on him, grabbing him by the arms and yanking him off the wall. The chair was discarded. Jou tripped over it as they dragged him towards the door.

"Maybe you should cool off for a bit," the "good" officer said, opening up the door as Jou thrashed around. "We'll just leave you in a cell…see how things go." They said, and continued to drag him through the precinct and towards the jail cell.

Once in, Jou stumbled down and onto his knees as the doors slammed closed. It occurred to him all of a sudden:

"I want a lawyer!" he said. "You can't do this ta me!"

"You'll get one," the good officer said. "A public defender, right?" He was sneering at Jou.

"What the fuck's that mean! No, call on Kaiba-san yourself. You'll see! You'll see how much I didn't do this horseshit when he helps me."

His hands were tight around the bars until the officers were gone. He slid down them and fell on his butt, looking through to a nearby wall. There were eyes on his back, but he never turned. His head fell and he watched as blood pooled down on the ground, dripping from his nose and forehead.

When he tried to wipe it away, the blood just smeared all over his palms and left them slick, as if it were just colored sweat. It hit him around then that he was crying; he was just so jarred he didn't register it immediately.

"Kaiba…"

Pressing his head to the bars again, he used the coolness to dull the throbbing. His hands slid down them, leaving a trail of blood all the way down. But Jou didn't care. He just watched the wall, imaging Kaiba standing before him and shaking his head. It just made the tears resurface.

Over the past day, Mai must have called Jou's cell phone at least fifteen times, trying to solve the problem after seeing the news report about Kaiba, and about the supposed "abduction" of Mokuba. There wasn't a doubt that he had seen it too, or at least had heard about it, but that didn't change the fact that both she and Jou had to figure out what it was they needed to do in order to remedy the situation. Mai wasn't sure if just interjecting Mokuba back would be too suspicious, especially at the risk of involving social services that would come and apprehend Mokuba just shortly after his return.

She kept weighing the pros and cons, and with every phone call she became even more worried about the situation. There weren't many instances were Jou just decided not to answer the phone, and she wondered if there was some trouble going on.

That was why she was driving through Domino, trying to recall where the Kame Game Shop. It had been so long that she had been there, and she was sure that she was driving around in circles until she found it and was able to park.

It seemed like she wasn't the only one that considered turning to Yugi to find Jou, because as she walked in, she noticed that both Honda and Anzu were in the shop and talking to Yugi. They all stopped their conversation to look at Mai. It was like standing in front of a crowd and she had forgotten the words to a speech. Talking to Yugi was going to one thing, bringing it up with the others around seemed completely different.

"Hey, Mai," Yugi said, breaking the awkward silence. "What um…what brings you here?"

"Jou," she said. "I need to know where he is."

The three looked at each other then back at her. "Well…we don't really know either," Yugi said. "That's what we were trying to figure out."

Mai's shoulders dropped, and she lowered her head and wondered if maybe the worst had happened. That maybe somewhere along the lines, Jou had gotten arrested, or even worse, had been killed. Not that she could think of a reason why, just for sheer accident. Her guts clenched. "Oh."

"Why are you lookin' for him?" Honda asked.

"I…I have some things I need to talk to him about. Personal things," she said.

Yugi nodded. "We're just getting worried about him," he said. "None of us have been able to get in contact with him."

"Me either." Mai agreed. "I'm worried maybe something bad has happened."

"Yeah," Honda crossed his arms. "Probably having something to do with Kaiba. Nothin' ever goes right around him anymore."

It took all of her strength to hide her surprise. Of course his friends would know, but it almost seemed like Honda had a better idea of what was going on than most. She wondered how much Jou might have told his friends and who else, besides her, he might have turned to due to his relationship problems.

"Look, I don't know," she said, palms out. "I just need to talk to him."

"I am…also wondering where Yami has been," Yugi said. "He's been disappearing a lot and for hours, and it's began getting a little worrisome as well."

Now that one, Mai didn't know. She walked closer to the group, crossing her arms close to her chest, showing her discomfort with each step. How long would it take before they could see under her skin and know that she knew more than she let on. It was all on the tip of her tongue, and she was ready to tell them, yet she knew how much Jou was trusting with her. The weight of danger versus secrecy seemed almost too deadlocked for her to choose a side.

"Do you think he's hiding something?" Anzu asked.

"He hasn't told me anything," said Yugi. "And I try not to pry."

"He probably knows something then," Mai interjected. "If anyone would know anything in this situation, it's Yami."

A quiet lulled over the four of them, and Yugi disappeared behind the counter for a moment as if to disappear, only to reappear a short time later. "I found some things lying around when I went into his room…I really didn't think much of it but," in his hands was a stack of magazines and a few newspapers. "I found all these; they're kinda worn out, must have been looked through a lot."

Mai took hold of one of them. "These are mostly ragmags. Nothing special about these things," she said, but she could notice that there was a similar theme with all of them. "They're all about Kaiba and Jou…none of them are completely recent. Several weeks old at the earliest."

"Obsessed?" Anzu asked, confused. She took one of the magazines as well. "Geez, this is like research."

The only one that wasn't looking was Honda. For the most part, he was sneering at the magazines, and Mai could probably guess why. She gave a softened expression, and then took one of the magazines and flipped through it. "How long's he been gone today?"

"Um…I think he left about four or five hours ago," Yugi said. "He may be back shortly, since this is…usually how long he's gone for. We could wait."

"I can't," Honda said quickly. "I have to go to work."

"Okay," Mai nodded. "Thanks anyways."

Honda kept looking at Mai, brows furrowed. "I am worried about him," Honda said. "That's why I'm here."

"I know," she said. "I just think maybe if there's something bad or wrong, and you think you know why, you can tell us."

"I don't know anything. The last thing Jou would tell me is about this kind of…relationship. So I'm about the most useless. I don't know where he'd go if he disappeared. Maybe Shizuka's, if there's any place at all. May not have called or said nothing to nobody, but other than that, I don't really know. Especially if he doesn't have his phone."

After that, Honda left before he had to say anything else, or before they could ask any more questions. Mai disregarded his flippancy and looked back to the magazines. She knew what was up with Mokuba, and she could probably figure out what was up with Jou. She gripped the magazine.

"I'm going to wait for Yami," she said, her voice lowering to a hum. "Do you mind, Yugi?"

"No, of course not," he said. "We can all wait in the living room. I'll be in when Gramps takes over."

As Anzu went into the living room, Mai kept holding onto the magazine, staring at it blankly, scared not only for Jou, but starting to worry about her own life and freedom for being a part of it. Not only that, she was beginning to worry about Shizuka and Ryuji. She began to wonder if she should contact them, and she wondered if maybe Mokuba needed to be moved.

"Something wrong, Mai?" Yugi asked.

Shaking her head, Mai looked over to Yugi and smiled. "Um…no. No, I'm just thinking," she handed back the magazine and went to the living room to sit with Anzu.

"Kaiba-san?" Asked the nurse who was hovering by Kaiba. She kept a safe distance from the CEO as he eased down out of the bed, having trouble finding his footing but holding on between the bed and a nearby bureau. She dashed out of the room and came back, a pair of aluminum crutches. She tried getting him to take them as he was tentative with his bad leg. Finally noticing her, Kaiba took the crutches as adjusting, touching his toe to the ground and trying to move.

"Kaiba-san, where are you going?"

The whole while, Kaiba was wordless, balancing himself as he leaned to the bureau and opened the drawer, looking through his set of clothes. "Kaiba-san, is there something that I can help you with? Is there something you need?"

"No. Go away."

Kaiba was rifling through the pockets of his clothes, but he wasn't specifically taking out any other articles. Some of his affects were starting to pile on the bureau; things that were regularly kept in pockets such as his wallet and a few useless pieces of paper. He opened the bag that some of the loose things were kept in, and he found his phone. After that, he sat back down and started playing with it. The nurse immediately went over to him.

"I don't believe the doctor would like that…"

The nurse was mousy and seemed to be intimidated by Kaiba. Using that to his advantage, he pressed the number he had for Jou and pressed it to his ear. There was no reply. After that, he tried calling Mokuba, and he wondered if the boy would reply, but before he gave him the chance, Kaiba hung up the phone as his stomach clenched up. Suddenly his voice was hiding from him again, and he couldn't really make himself speak. Not even to the nurse hovering by him, looking over her shoulder and out to the hallway.

"Kaiba-san…I can give you a few more moments, but you finish up making calls, please."

Kaiba couldn't think of who to call, precisely. It made sense as he was looking for his phone, but now it was like all his thoughts went out the window.

He unclasped it from his hands and went through his contacts for one more number, pressing it to his ear. When he got a reply, he smiled.

"I have news," he said, still speaking in brevity. Like his tongue stuck after three words.

"What about, Kaiba-san?" The publicist asked.

"The tabloid news," he replied. "About the relationship."

"Are…are you well Kaiba-san?" the man asked. Kaiba worried, for a moment, if maybe he was making a brash decision. The more he thought about, though, the more that it made sense. "Kaiba-san?"

"I am well. I haven't been. Now I am." He cleared his throat and looked up to the nurse who was still keeping an eye on him. She then began busying herself, cleaning up the small mess that he had made on the bureau and tucking everything back in.

"You seem…as if you're stressed, Kaiba-san. Perhaps you should rest some more."

"No, I've rested, I…"he looked up, noticing that there was another person leaning in the door. Even the nurse looked back, feeling as though there were pressure in the air. "I'll call back," he said, and he hung up. The nurse held out her hands, and Kaiba seemed more than willing to press the phone in her palms. She shuffled it away and hid it underneath his clothes in the bureau.

"You seem better," Yami said. He walked in slowly, arms crossed at the breast. At first, there was nothing to distinguish firmness from anger. "Have you decided what you should be doing to solve your problems, then?"

"I have." Kaiba nodded, shifting himself back in the bed and propping his leg back up. The nurse, content that Kaiba was doing better and that things were back to normal, shuffled out of the room. "I tried calling Jou."

"He won't reply," Yami said. "His devotion has driven him past the point of no return."

"How do you mean?"

"He's giving his own freedom for you," Yami sat down and leaned forward. In his hands, he was fiddling with a coin. "Do you still doubt his affection?"

"I haven't. After a while…"he shrugged. "It seemed clear."

"Good," Yami said. "Because I don't know how long he will survive being starved."

Kaiba's eyes closed. "I don't understand." Yami smirked, and he looked down to his hands in contemplation, as if it was so hard to speak. "Please, tell me."

"You can figure it out," Yami said. "You know all of the pieces more intimately than most. I think you don't want to face that consideration. You don't want to understand."

"Stop these games."

"The games have just begun, and you are at the center. You are spinning them. You are the gamemaster. Everything that has happened has happened because of you. You don't want to understand so you don't have to accept that you are at fault."

"I have done nothing," he said, breathing heavily. "I have had everything caused to me…"

"You are not the victim," the coin squeezed tight in Yami's hand. "Far from it. In the days I have spoken to you, it is very clear the part that you play. It has taken this long to realize that you need to take action or else it will all come falling down."

Kaiba was slack in his place, his arms crossed over one another and his eyes squeezed closed. "I am tired of this…"he said, looking to his ankles. He grabbed the crutches from the bureau and forced himself back up on them. "I have to get out of here."

"Are you allowed?"

Kaiba pulled out the bag that the nurse had neatly tucked in, and he put it under his arm as he tottered to the bathroom. Yami followed the brunet with his eyes, a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his lips. A short time later, Kaiba came out of the bathroom, tucking his hair behind his ears and trying to make himself presentable in the wrinkled shirt and slacks. How old were these clothes? He was sure they were almost musty.

"Well now," Yami said. "I should call you Kaiba-san now, shouldn't I?"

Kaiba sneered, emptying the contents of the bag and shoving the affects into his pockets. He went over to the bureau to make sure there wasn't anything that he missed. Phone, wallet, keys. In bureau still was the locket. Pulling it out, Kaiba realized that someone had taped the chain back together. It was a temporary fix, enough that Kaiba could wear it for a short time.

"I haven't worn shoes in days…."he mentioned. He was still for a moment, and he wondered his course of action from there on out. Realizing the mental lock, Yami stood up and moved towards the door. Kaiba started hobbling towards the door and out it, planning on going to see the doctor and checking himself out of the hospital.

After so many hours, to the point that Jou wasn't even sure how long that the police had left him sitting there amongst others and pondering his fate. In all the time that he was sitting, there was one thing that Jou wanted, and that was to lie down, Kaiba's back pressed into him. Jou's head stopped throbbing about the time that he started thinking about Kaiba's hands tracing up his back. It made Jou smile. He was drifting off into his own personal nirvana.

His eyes opened back at up at the sound of hooting from across the cell. "'Ey, look at that," one man cackled. He wasn't sure what that man was talking about. "Must be excited to be here." Jou looked down, realizing that his legs were splayed and his arms hung over his knees. While in his reminiscence, Jou didn't notice where he had gone hard at the very thought of it. Their eyes glowered on him, and Jou grit his teeth in response.

Amidst their cackling, Jou closed his swollen eyes again and tried to imagine himself lying beside Kaiba, but no matter what he imagined, all he could see was Kaiba's back, as if he couldn't conjure up any facial expressions for Kaiba. Nothing more than the blankness that he had gotten accustomed to seeing in the near past.

Half asleep, the pain slipping away, it didn't matter how he seen Kaiba particularly. It made him smile to imagine himself hugging around Kaiba, or even touching his hand like he was allowed and then Kaiba leaning over and kissing him, bringing his hands up to Jou's head and holding it in place to make it more passionate.

Halfway through the kiss, someone started banging on the bars. His eyes snapped open, and Jou looked up in the semi-darkness to see the "good" cop looking down on him. "Get up," the officer said. "Get up, you get your phone call."

"Finally…"

"Yeah. After that we're taking you back in for questioning."

The cell was unlocked with a heavy 'click' and Jou slipped out. The officer took him by the arm and led him through a series of hallways until he was in a small nook of a corner where there were three payphones. Just around the corner he could see the lobby.

The officer handed him the correct change, and Jou slipped the coins in and, after a bit of consideration, dialed. It took one ring, two rings. His stomach was sinking; worried that maybe they wouldn't answer the phone. Out of the corner of his eye, the officer stood erect and watching Jou carefully. He laid against the wall, and smiled when someone picked up.

"Moshi, moshi?"

"Shizuka-chan?"

"Katsuya? What's up?"

"I'm uh…in a bit of trouble," he said. He could hear his sister scoff a little bit, but then she asked:

"What's wrong? What did you do?"

"Nothin' much," he said. Jou tried not looking back to the officer too much, thinking that maybe the officer would pay more attention if he did. "Look I just um…I wanted you to know because."

"Because what?" Shizuka was quiet on the other line, and he wondered how much he would have to say. "Katsuya, are you there?"

"Yeah. I need ya t' call Mai," he said. "'Cause she can help, ya know? Help with the move."

Eureka hit Shizuka. "Oh, of course. I'll talk to Ryuji about it, too. It's…making me anxious." Jou was thankful she caught on quickly enough to know not to mention Mokuba, or what they were moving.

"Ya gonna come back to Domino?" he asked. "Shizuka?"

"I don't know. We're still thinking about it. Anything else you want me to talk to Mai about?"

"Yeah…if she can, get her ta talk ta Kaiba fer me. If she can get him ta talk or anything," he said. "Maybe talk 'bout a lawyer or somethin' like that."

"Is it really that bad, Katsuya?" Shizuka asked. "Are they really charging you?"

"Yeah. They're probably taking me to the prosecutor here soon," he shot a glance back at the officer who had unfurled himself from his erect stance and was coming over to Jou. "I have to go Shizuka. Careful on the move. Remember…talk ta Mai!" he said, and before she could say good-bye, he hung up the phone as the officer took him by the upper arm.

"Alright, time to do some more talking."

He was led back through the halls and back to the interrogation room from before, thrown in awkwardly and forced to sit. He saw his friend sitting across from him. Suddenly, the fresh wounds on his face began throbbing again. He licked his lips.

"Now…where to start again…"

Jou lowered his head and prayed his actions were just, because if nothing worked, he was sure that he would never see Kaiba again.

A/N: So...I hope this is development. What is Kaiba going to reveal? How much more trouble will Jou get in? Where are they taking Mokuba? You'll have to find out. Till next time, KenSan out!