Guard Dog: The evening before the morning after.
And almost 7,000 words later, we have a chapter. Or something.
Thanks to everyone who answered our poll about Seto's undies... think we're going to have to play with that some more later. ^_______^
Con't from here.
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Jounouchi walked in to find that the nature of the Duel had... changed somewhat during the time it took to escort Noa and Mokuba to the limo and back.
His first clue was the Rude Kaiser rutting with a Beaver Warrior instead of attacking it with it's twin axe blades.
"Um... Yuugi?" He ventured.
"Hiiiiiii, Jou~nou~chi-kuuuuuuuuun." Yuugi drawled happily, waving at him as he listed at an angle that would not have been possible for the sane. Jounouchi spared a brief wonder if it was because of Seto's coat of doom which almost seemed to keep upright him on the tiny raised platform.
"Hi, Yuugi." He smiled weakly back and waved. "Hi, Seto."
"Katsuya." Seto said with a great deal of dignity, shuffling a cardboard cutout of fish into his hand of cards.
"You two are completely drunk." He deadpanned.
"No." Yuugi and Seto declared with varying degrees of serious, sobriety and stability. "M'mot drunk!"
"Suuuuuure you're not... " Jounouchi drawled to himself, getting a hunch that this evening was going to be just a little bit more interesting than he'd previously thought. "... So, what are you doing?"
"Kaiba-kun said I could." Yuugi smiled, pointing somewhat in Seto's direction, if Jounouchi was reading the wobbly arm movements correctly. "Because he didn't like 'Chabbudai Kaeshi'."
"'Return a Low Dining Table' is not a honourable card." Seto informed them sourly, listing to the left.
"A low table appears under the monsters," Yuugi informed Jounouchi in what looked like it was supposed to be a conspiratorial manner but was anything but. "And flips hiiiigh up into the air. It destroys all of my monsters, then an equal number of the opponents monsters. Kaiba-kun's mad because not only did I have more monsters than him on the field, mine were all smallllllll little itty ones. So I still had life points left over his were all gone."
"Sounds like a deus ex machina to me." Jounouchi muttered before clearing his throat and speaking louder. "So now what are you playing?"
"Duel Monsters." Yuugi said as if it should be perfectly obvious. "But Kaiba-kun said that if I was gonna make schtuff up, I should make up fun stuff. So we did. See?"
Yuugi pointed to a Spear Dragon intertwined with Blackland Fire Dragon. "That was Kaiba-kun's idea. The one with the most attack points tops."
A Horned Imp ran by chasing a Mystic Horseman. Briefly, Jounouchi wondered why the centaur wasn't chasing, say, Mystical Elf, then dismissed the image from his mind.
"So what are you two duelling over this time?" Jounouchi asked, projecting as much of a calm, relaxed aura as he could. He was tranquil, he was serene, he was unruffled, he was cool, he was fine...
"You." Yuugi hiccupped.
.... He was completely lost. "Huh?"
"Winner gets to fuck you first." Yuugi informed him matter-of-factly.
"Hey." Seto frowned. "I thought winner gets a blow-job."
"We can do that too." Yuugi breezily assured Seto, nodding hard enough to pitch him forward.
"Huh?" Jounouchi repeated. He took off his headset and rubbed his ears, sure that he'd misheard that. "What?!"
"Kaiba-kun likes you." Yuugi said, swaying backwards. "But I like you too. So we were duelling over who gets to fuck you first. But Kaiba-kun says that the last duel wasn't a fair duel and I don't care how many times we kick his ass, so we're duelling again."
"And the loser gives the winner a blow-job." Seto reminded Yuugi.
"-And the winner gives the loser a blow-job." Yuugi agreed amiably. "So double win. How good are you at blow-jobs anyway, Kaiba-kun?"
Seto shrugged. Jounouchi felt his brain hurt.
...Yuugi liked him? -Liked- him liked him, like he and Seto liked each other? In a carnal way? Since when? Why had he not found this out before now?
How much sex had he missed out that he could have had before now?!
"Wait... wait... back it up." Jounouchi ran a hand through his hair, trying to get the thinking processes -out- of his pants. "I thought you two still didn't like each other."
"It works thusly." Seto said, summoning Peten the Dark Clown, who giggled and began eyeing the Mystic Horseman lasciviously. "The only person Katsuya is allowed to cheat on me with is Yuugi. Yuugi is not allowed to cheat on Katsuya. Except with me."
"And you?" Jounouchi questioned.
"I am a Kaiba." Seto informed them seriously. "Therefore I am not permitted to cheat on either of you." He didn't look terribly unhappy at that prospect. In fact, he looked downright smug over it.
"Right." Jounouchi said, rubbing his forehead. "Tell you what. The two of you come down from there and one of you can fuck me and I'll give a blow-job to the other one. Just not at the same time, okay?"
"Okay, Jou~nou~chi-kuuuun." Yuugi said easily. A little too easily. Jounouchi jerked his head up to look suspiciously at his best friend, who smiled back at him. Smirked. Leered.
Sweet innocent Yuugi, with whom Jounouchi had naively shared his porn with for years. Sweet innocent Yuugi who played a Strategy style deck. Sweet innocent Yuugi who'd just outmanoeuvred him before Jounouchi had realised that there was anything to manoeuvre.
.... fuck.
Literally.
"How shall we decide who gets what?" Seto inquired politely as Yuugi's monsters began to vanish from the field and Jounouchi's stomach landed somewhere about his feet.
"That's what Jun-Ken-Po is for." Yuugi informed him brightly.
"Best two out of three?" Seto asked as his monsters also vanished from the field.
"Perfect."
"What have the two of you been drinking?" Jounouchi questioned as his stomach returned back to it's usual location in time to tie itself into butterfly knots. "And how much have you had?"
"Tequila!" Yuugi beamed at him. "It tastes -really- bad at first, but after a while it's okay."
Jounouchi muffled a groan into his hand. When tequila started tasting good, that meant that it was time to STOP. "... And how much?"
"We finished a bottle together." Seto informed him, swaying in Jounouchi's direction as he put his deck away.
In other words, drinking contest. No wonder. Yeah, this night had just got to heck in a hand-basket hadn't it? Jounouchi sighed, running a hand through his hair again before putting his head set back on. "Right. So long as the plans are settled, why don't we head back to the house?"
"We could play here." Yuugi said cheerfully as the hydraulic platforms began their decent to the ground.
Riiiiiiight. Cause video camera surveillance and hard surfaces were your friend. "Beds, Yuugi."
"Ooooooooo." Yuugi grinned, a distant expression in his eyes as he swayed dangerously backwards, almost off the platform. "Okay."
Never allow Yuugi to drink anything ever again, Jounouchi made a mental note. Never. Never ever. Sure Yuugi was cute while tipsy, but he lacked any sort of survival instinct and that was Bad. With underscores and big sparkly letters. He really didn't want to think about the types of cards that were going to come out of tonight's adventure.
Jounouchi tried not to stare as Seto walked over towards him, hips swaying fluidly in his figure-hugging leather trousers, the extremely tight black shirt creeping up Seto's abdomen again, showing off his belly button. Bellllllly button... Seto had a navel.
Of course Seto had a navel, everyone had a navel and it wasn't like Seto was a cloned test tube baby but... He usually didn't get to -see- Seto's belly button. And it was flirting with him. Seto's belly button was totally flirting with him. Jounouchi nearly whimpered. This was so not fair. Why did he have to be the responsible one right now? If he was drunk too, he could do something about the belly button. Like lick it and watch Seto squirm. Or lick Seto's long elegant neck, which was freed from it's usual camouflage of the turtleneck. Or his partially naked collarbones...
Jounouchi quickly cleared his throat and glanced over at Yuugi, who was making his wobbly way over. "Yo."
"Hiiiiiiiii." Yuugi drawled happily, pitching forward and wrapping his arms around Jounouchi's waist. "Mmm.... warm."
"Thank you, Yuugi." Jounouchi smiled and patted his best friend's spiky hair. "Now please get your hand off my butt."
"Awwww." Yuugi pouted, but did so, his hand sliding back up north. Jounouchi jumped slightly as another hand, much larger hand replaced it, Seto making a pleased rumble in Jounouchi's ear as he suddenly appeared right next to him.
"You too, Seto." Jounouchi scolded. "Limo first, then home, then groping."
Seto smirked, leaning slightly against Jounouchi as he tried ushering the two drunks towards the door. Yuugi appeared to have about three left feet and no right feet, giggling and blushing madly as Jounouchi hauled him through the locker bay through the judicious use of an arm around the smaller man's waist. Seto stayed pressed against him as well, despite his ability to walk in a straight line regardless of how much he swayed.
Fortunately the limo driver was where Jounouchi had requested, right outside the side door with motor running. Jounouchi muttered a quick prayer of thanks as he opened the door, glanced in to make sure it was empty --no teenagers-- before tossing Yuugi in. Yuugi seemed to think that this was great fun, giggling madly as he bounced on the seat. Jounouchi pushed Seto and his briefcase in and quickly followed, shutting the door behind him as Seto settled his long limbs in the seat.
Jounouchi scrambled to the front of the car, accidentally losing the long coat around his waist on the way and tapped on the divider, which rolled down at his signal. "Could you run an errand for me?" Jounouchi asked, kneeling on the seat to talk as the car pulled away. The driver nodded, murmuring a polite acknowledgement. It was part of the driver's job, but Jounouchi always preferred to ask. "Thanks. Needja ta stop by a convenience store and pick up a couple big bottles of water, maybe some juice if you feel like it and some of those bottled vitamin drinks."
"Hangover cure?" The driver inquired with thinly veiled amusement.
"Yeah." He glanced back at his two charges for the night and found them propped up against each other, near identical sappy smug possessive smiles on their faces as they watched him. Or more appropriately, his bent over ass. Seto he wasn't surprised by. But it was kind of unnerving to see Yuugi -openly- checking him out.
"Yo, Kaiba." He quickly turned around in the seat and sat down. "Where's your wallet?"
"What is my name, Katsuya?" Seto corrected sternly, raising an admonishing finger.
"Right... Seto." Jounouchi raised an eyebrow. It was one thing to call your former boss by their name in the privacy of your shared living area. It was another to say it in public. Or where other people could hear it. "Where is your wallet?"
Seto smirked. "One of three places." He said loftily as Yuugi giggled softly. "One of my trouser pockets, one of the coat pockets, or my briefcase."
"... And it's in which one?" Jounouchi hesitantly ventured, mentally tallying up how much money he had in his pockets. Just under a thousand yen, which wasn't going to get much at the convenience store. A large bottle of water was a couple hundred yen, never mind the vitamins...
"I suppose you will have to check and discover for yourself, won't you?" Seto said, sounding way too pleased about the prospect. Yuugi giggled, a small grin growing on his face.
Greeeeeat. The fondness for games hadn't disappeared. Jounouchi sighed as he leaned forward, grabbing his long coat and refastening it around his waist before getting within arms reach of the two jokers. He couldn't check the briefcase of doom without the security code, which he didn't have. Which left either Seto's tight pants or the large white coat that Yuugi was currently buried in.
... pants first. They'd be easier. He leaned over Seto, who watched him with lustful half-lidded eyes as Jounouchi ran his hands up Seto's thighs, finding nothing in those pockets. Seto did have very nice, firm thighs however, which was no doubt the point of this game.
"Lift your hips up please." He requested, trying not to show how much this was affecting him. Seto did as he'd been bid, Jounouchi running his hands around the waistband, then down Seto's lean hips and the curve of his butt. Nothing. "Thank you." He said quickly, drawing back before he gave into temptation and explored further.
So not fair, so not fair, soooooo not fair. He swallowed and turned towards Yuugi, who was smirking at him, a challenging light in his violet eyes. This would be so much easier if he could just grab Yuugi by the ankles, turn him upside down and shake him until everything in his pockets fell out.
"I've got a wallet too~!" Yuugi gleefully informed him. "Wanna guess where it is?"
"Not right at this moment." Jounouchi muttered, leaning forward and patting the coat, and therefore Yuugi's small frame down. For a small skinny guy, Yuugi was surprisingly well built, which was not doing anything to help Jounouchi's currently frame of mind. He found an appropriately sized bulge on the right hand side, about Yuugi's waist level, which would be about chest high for Seto. He opened the coat and reached inside, ignoring Yuugi's ticklish squirming as he did so, finding the wallet and pulling it out.
He scurried back to the front of the limo to talk to the nice, safe, sane driver up front, ignoring the two chortling duellists in the back. He opened Seto's wallet and pulled out a couple of thousand yen notes and a note from Mokuba informing his 'Niisama that he owed him two hundred-yen coins, three fifty-yen coins, a twenty-yen coin and seven five-yen coins. And that Mokuba was keeping the two one-yen coins, okay?
Jounouchi put the note back. The Kaiba brothers were really weird. "Here." He said, passing the money forward to the driver. "Large bottles of water, vitamins, and juice. You can get one for yourself too, if you want. And if they have it, peanut butter sandwiches. Give me a receipt if you would too, I wanna shove this in his face later."
"No problem." The driver agreed. "Screen up or down?"
"Up, please." Jounouchi said dryly. "But I'll give a shout if I need help."
"Sure." The privacy screen went back up, much to Jounouchi's relief. He just -knew- that whole 'What's my name' thing was going to get around. At least Seto hadn't decided that he must be called 'Master' or something stupid like that.
"Sometimes I think you two are more trouble than you're worth." He muttered, scooting forward again, pausing at the mini-bar to pull out a couple of bottles of water. He thought about it a moment and pulled out a couple of air-sick bags as well, just in case. Some people didn't take well to limo rides and they worked just as well as drunk bags.
"Here." He instructed, opening the bottles and passing them to his drunken friends. "Drink."
Seto made a thoughtful sound and took the bottle, taking a careful sip. Yuugi frowned at him. "What if it's poisoned?"
"It's not poisoned." Jounouchi said, exasperated. That was what the water was for, to flush the poisons that alcohol created out of their system. "Look." He took a sip of the bottle and handed it to Yuugi. "Now you."
"Hee hee." Yuugi chortled, taking the bottle and clutching it to his chest like it was a favourite toy before taking a sip. "Indirect kiss."
One of Seto's eyebrows rose as Jounouchi felt a blush slide across his cheeks. He'd fallen for one of Yuugi's schemes again, dammit. "Now why didn't I think of that?" The tall duellist mused, eyeing Jounouchi.
Jounouchi glared back. "No."
"Perhaps later, then." Seto decided, drinking some more of his water. Jounouchi sighed, sitting down on the floor of the limo, feeling much older than his twenty-one years.
"You could join us up here, Jou~nou~chi-kuuun." Yuugi said, tilting away from Seto. "There's room."
"Not just yet." Jounouchi waved it off. "Finish your bottle of water first."
Yuugi eyed Seto's half-finished bottle speculatively. "No more drinking contests." Jounouchi scolded sternly. "If you throw up, you're the one who has to clean out the limo."
"We could lean out the window!" Yuugi helpfully offered. "Then it wouldn't be in the limo."
"I'd make you go back and -lick- it off the ground." Jounouchi growled.
"I do believe Katsuya is rather annoyed at us." Seto said mildly, reaching out and tugging the smaller duellist towards him. Yuugi made a sulky face as he leaned back against Seto, looking like a petulant child who wasn't allowed to play his favourite game. Jounouchi ignored it for the moment, taking the opportunity for a quick breather while they finished their water.
He still couldn't get his brain around Yuugi propositioning him. He'd known Yuugi for what? Five? Six years now? And he'd never known that Yuugi was interested in him. Hell, they'd pretty much shared a bed for a year, after Yuugi's Other Self left, still did on occasion, and he'd never seen any sign of Yuugi being interested in him as anything other than a close friend, or a brother.
He wasn't quite sure how he felt about it. Yeah, sure he loved Yuugi. But he didn't know if he loved Yuugi like -that-.
However, he was sure of one thing. He didn't want to lose Yuugi, or their friendship. Heh. First letters of their names, 'Yu' and 'Jou', combined meant Unity or Friendship. He'd said that they were friends for life and he meant that, no matter what.
The limo pulled to a stop in front of a convenience store and the driver got out. "Huh?" Yuugi questioned, lifting his head and watching the driver walk into the small shop.
"I asked him to pick up a few things." Jounouchi said, feeling calmer, though no less confused. At least he could take care of them in the mean time. "Have either of you eaten since breakfast?"
Seto shrugged. Yuugi looked confused. Jounouchi was pretty sure Seto hadn't eaten lunch since Jounouchi had been nose deep in paperwork most of the day and therefore unable to chase him down and make him eat. And Yuugi he wasn't sure about, this was the first he'd seen of his friend all day. So therefore the Magic 8 Ball mostly likely read 'All Signs Point Towards No' or 'Question Hazy, Try Again Later'. "I'm going to take that as a 'No'." He remarked, running a hand over his head and messing up his hair.
Yuugi hiccuped in response and started humming something slightly off-key, mumbling occasionally. It took Jounouchi a little bit to catch the line 'And really bad eggs' before he realised that Yuugi was humming the theme from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Seto started joining in on the 'Yo-ho, Yo-ho' choruses and Jounouchi just let them be. At least it gave them something to occupy themselves with.
The driver knocked on the window a moment later and he slipped onto the seat next to Yuugi to roll down the window. "Here you go, sir." The driver said, handing him two plastic bags. "Water, juice, vitamins and they did have peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches."
"Thanks." Jounouchi grinned. This would hopefully make things in the morning slightly easier. It'd be best for their hangovers if they could purge themselves of the toxins tonight by throwing up the alcohol, but they were both big boys and should have known better. And Jounouchi didn't want to deal with them vomiting, so therefore they could deal with the consequences in the morning. But he would do his best to take some of the edge off tonight. "Did you get yourself a juice as well?"
"I got a canned tea." The driver nodded, then handed Jounouchi the change, wrapped up in the receipt.
"Good." Jounouchi smiled. It sucked buying for other people and not being able to get anything for yourself. "If you could take us the long way home, I'd really appreciate it." It would be easier to get food and water into them if they were trapped in the car instead of playing hide-and-go-seek all over the mansion.
"Of course." The driver nodded with an amused smile, tipping their hat slightly. "Oh yes, and this is for you, sir." The driver handed Jounouchi a separate, smaller bag.
"Huh?" Jounouchi took it and glanced inside. It was a disposable camera. He raised an eyebrow. The driver cleared their throat, subtly gesturing to both Seto and Yuugi, who were poking at the bags with child-like curiosity without actually opening them.
"For posterity, sir." The driver grinned and gave him a small tip of the hat before walking back up to the drivers seat. Jounouchi laughed as he rolled the window back up. It wouldn't even matter if he took any pictures, much less developed them, just the fact that -he- had a camera and -they- were drunk would give him blackmail material for years. Jokingly, of course. For the sake of their friendship.
"Here. Drink." Jounouchi opened the larger bottles of water and handed the bottles to them to drink before digging around for the sandwiches. It was the weirdest thing, but he'd noticed that the few times he'd drunk in the past that he craved peanut-butter sandwiches. But they were sweet and salty and protein and seemed to do the job, so he wasn't going to question it too much. There were a couple of cheap onigiri at the bottom as well which he was grateful to see. "We've got some sandwiches to share too." He informed them.
"Okay." Yuugi agreed, and then attempted to climb either into or over his lap. Unfortunately this coincided with the driver taking off, sending the small duellist sprawled all over Jounouchi.
"Yuugi!" Jounouchi yelped, frantically grabbing the water bottle before it had a chance to spill. "What are you doing?!"
"Sharing." Yuugi hiccuped, sliding in-between Jounouchi and the door. "Jou~nou~chi-kuuun sandwich, see?"
"You did say us would join you after we finished our water bottles." Seto pointed out, the slurring dyslexic voice of reason.
Jounouchi muffled another sigh. He had, hadn't he? "All right." He agreed. "You, scoot over so we all fit comfortably. Yuugi, ditch the coat, would you? I don't think there's enough room back here for it."
"Okay~!" Yuugi grinned as he wiggled out of the long white coat as Seto smirked and slid over on the leather seats just enough so that Jounouchi could sit in the middle. Which he did, taking the bags with him and setting them on the ground between his feet. Yuugi giggled and snuggled up on his other side, cradling the water-bottle in his lap, Seto's coat discarded to the middle of the limo. "I can ditch the shirt too~!"
"No, that's okay." Jounouchi said quickly, unwrapping a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and thrusting it at Yuugi. "Eat that instead."
"Mou..." Yuugi sulked, poking at the sandwich, the long sleeves of Seto's shirt falling over his hands. "I'd prefer a hamburger."
He probably would, but they didn't have one handy and Jounouchi didn't entirely feel like going to get one. Jounouchi handing another sandwich to Seto. "Eat."
"Yes, Katsuya." Seto said obediently, the smirk on his face silently stating that the billionaire would prefer to be eating something other than the sandwich. Or someone. Someone next to him and blond. Jounouchi rolled his eyes and pulled out a sandwich for himself as well.
"You will worship the ground I walk on later for this." He assured Seto before taking a bite of his sandwich. Seto snorted, like he didn't believe it, but started to eat anyway. At least Jounouchi had Seto trained by now to eat what ever Jounouchi handed him. He poked Yuugi, who seemed to be more interested in dissecting the bread from the sticky-sweet goodness. "Eat. Or else."
Yuugi grumbled but began eating anyway, alternating with long draughts of water to clear the sticky peanut-butter out of his mouth. Jounouchi resisted the urge to smirk. It got both food and water into the small man. Double victory. Seto ate his with slow deliberation, alternating with measured sips of his water bottle.
He waited until they had both managed to keep about half of their sandwiches down before pulling out the small brown bottles of liquid vitamins. He opened those as well and passed them to his friends to drink. Both made faces but dutifully gulped the liquid down as fast as they could, Yuugi making a face as he finished his. Jounouchi chuckled and handed him a juice to drink to clear the taste out. Which then led to Seto wanting one as well.
Jounouchi almost felt like it was a game between Seto and Yuugi... that Jounouchi had to treat them equally, give them equal amounts of attention. It was a game he wasn't particularly sure on the rules on, much less how to win. It was kind of making his head hurt because it was like they were in competition with each other, only not.
He sighed and leaned back in the seat, Seto pressed up comfortably on one side of him, Yuugi nustled against him on the other. Sharing a Jounouchi sandwich indeed. The other duellists were quiet and Jounouchi could see them coming off of the drunken high. Time for the crash.
Yuugi was the most noticeable one, he went from cuddling to actually leaning. "Jounouch'?" Yuugi asked softly, dropping the 'i' from Jounouchi's name like he usually did. Only it was usually a harsher clipped sound on the end, not a drunken mumble.
"Yeah, Yuugi?"
"I -hic- messed up, didn't I?" Yuugi said sadly, his head turned to stare out the window. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Jounouchi sighed, wrapping an arm around Yuugi's shoulders. "You're drunk, Yuugi." Funny, he thought tequila made people's clothes come off and wine that made people tell the truth. Wasn't it that Greek saying? V... v... v..., no wait, that was 'I came, I saw, I conquered'. That was Seto, not Yuugi.
Yuugi hiccuped. "But you're not." He pointed out, from the depths of supposed despair. "An' I won't remember much in the morning, but you will. And now I've given you a bad mammary."
"I think he means 'Memory'." Seto commented quietly, making boob groping motions on his own flat muscular chest. "Breasts don't have him."
"Shh." Jounouchi nudged Seto. He'd figured that out on his own, thanks. Although now he couldn't get the image of talking cleavage out of his head. "And no you didn't, Yuugi." He'd just been surprised a bit. More than a bit. A lot.
"Yes I did." Yuugi insisted. "But... you're going away too now. Like Ate -hic- my Other Self did an' I don't wanna let you go. So if I won and didn't... didn't.... then Kaiba couldn't either. And if we did -hiccup-, I thought maybe I could hold on to that little piece of you... even after you left." He laughed softly, almost bitterly. "It's stupid, I know. But I didn't say anything last... last... -hic- and I love you too and m'happy for you an' Kaiba-kun and I'm so afraid of ending alone again because it hurts and it sucks and I shouldn't have SAID anything because now you're gonna -hic- haaaate meeee..."
The last was said in a soft keening wail that almost broke Jounouchi's heart. Yuugi had played a Shadows, Silence and Toys deck since his last duel with his Other Self, because while the Shadows were a part of him, like they were a part of Atemu, he wasn't Chaos and Black Magic. He was Games and Toys and seeing everything but never saying what he saw. The best and worst parts of being a child really.
"I'm not going anywhere, Yuugi." He said softly, wrapping his arm around his small friend. "Best friends. I don't hate you and I'm not leaving."
Atemu had left, because no matter how much he had loved Yuugi, this was not his time or place. His had ended thousands of years ago. And his presence here had drawn trouble to them like huge-firebreathing moths to a bug zapper. By leaving and sealing the Sennen Items and the Shadow Games again, he had been able to finally bring some peace to those around him by setting down his swords. But by leaving, he'd ripped a chunk out of Yuugi. And Jounouchi knew that first hand.
"Yes, you are." Yuugi muttered miserably. "Everyone does. Honda doesn't come over since he moved in with Otogi unless it's to bitch about you... Anzu stopped talking to me after she started dating Mai. Ryou doesn't have time since he got together with Malik-"
"What?!" When had that happened?!
"... Or is Malik dating Rashid?" Yuugi mumbled, his speech becoming slower. "Rashid and Isis? I can't remember. Something. Massive orgy in Egypt. Foursome. What will the children look like? Anyway. Everyone finds someone else and they forget about me. And now you are... an' m'all alone again."
Jounouchi sighed. It was really hard to argue with drunks. They got the weirdest ideas in their head that had nothing to do with logic. And then would get stubborn about it. If it wasn't such a serious discussion he'd shift the discussion to something else. Like cats. "I don't know what to tell you, Yuugi." He finally said as Yuugi's eyes started to drift shut, still clutching the half full water bottle to his chest. "Except to show you that I'm not going anywhere. Okay?"
Yuugi made a soft mewling sound before his eyes closed, snoring softly as he fell asleep. The snoring would get louder later, but for the moment it was still muted. Jounouchi had never been able to figure out what was it about alcohol that made people snore like a herd of mating walruses.
"You knew, didn't you?" Jounouchi asked, leaning his head against the back of the seat and twining the fingers of his free hand with Seto's unusually warm ones. Seto squeezed his hand back, his own head against the back of the seat, eyes closed. Seto's belly button flirted with Jounouchi some more, but he ignored it.
"That he loved you as more than a friend? Yes." Seto said seriously. "We... talked. A while back. He did not know you for to wish."
... wish for you to know, Jounouchi mentally corrected. "So what do you get out of this?" Jounouchi asked, frowning. "Ya wouldn't orchestrate this without being able to profit from it." He liked Seto, really he did, but the business mogul was not exactly known for his altruistic motives.
Seto smirked, eyes still closed as he ran his thumb across Jounouchi's knuckles. "Ask me again tomorrow, and see we shall."
And now they had the wise words of Yoda. Great. He elbowed Seto in the ribs. "No falling asleep. I can't carry you up the stairs if you pass out."
"Then kindly request of the driver that we be taken to our palace of residence haste post." Seto drawled. "This is the third time we've been around the block."
"Right." Jounouchi removed his arm from around Yuugi, who fell onto Jounouchi's lap and drooled, to hit the intercom button. "Home, please."
"No problem, sir." The driver said briskly, making an abrupt turn.
"Thanks." Jounouchi sighed, closing his eyes for a minute. Yuugi snored louder, much to Seto's snickering amusement. Jounouchi debated nudging him again, then reached down and pulled the smaller bag out of the pile at his feet, retrieving the disposable camera.
"What doing are you?" Seto inquired as Jounouchi unwrapped the camera and snapped a shot of the sleeping businessman.
"Insurance." Jounouchi said briskly, before taking a quick picture of Yuugi drooling on his lap. He stretched an arm out, trying to get a shot with all three of them in it but wasn't sure if he got it or not. He took a couple more of both Seto and Yuugi, for future reference.
The driver pulled into the driveway of the Kaiba Mansion, waited a minute for the gates to open before smoothly driving up to the front and parking close to the front steps. "Thanks!" Jounouchi shouted as he climbed over Yuugi to open the door. He stuck the camera in his pocket and turned around to grab the sleeping duellist. Yuugi made shuffling noises in his sleep as he cuddled up to Jounouchi, some how gaining ten kilos in the manner of small children and pets seemed to as he did so.
Seto had an amused look on his face as he followed Jounouchi out, with a great deal more grace as he carefully placed his long limbs so as to not stumble. Which would be absolutely -terribly- improper for a Kaiba to do, of course. Jounouchi was privately convinced that there was a written list of commandments hidden somewhere in the house of things that 'Kaiba Were Not To Do'.
... evidently sex with cute blond guys with dog attributes wasn't one of those Not To Do things, thank the gods.
"Come on." He said motioning for Seto to follow him into the house. "Time for all good duellists to be in bed."
"And what about naughty ones?" Seto leered softly as they meandered up the stairs to the front door.
"Them too."
Seto smirked happily, in a smug 'I'm going to get laid' sort of way. Jounouchi rolled his eyes, ignoring the fact that he probably had a similar expression on his own face, even if it wasn't happening tonight. Yet another down side to getting drunk, it was a sexual inhibitor.
They made it inside and up the grand staircase up to the second floor and staggered down the maze of corridors to Seto's bedroom. One of these days he really needed to get a golf cart up here for nights like this, it would make things so much easier.
"Toilet." Seto hiccupped as they made it inside Seto's large room, the brunette rushing off to the side towards the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind him and Jounouchi winced. Well, hopefully that meant the water had done it's job.
He set Yuugi down on the bed and after a moment's thought, began working on removing clothing. The boots went, followed by Seto's shirt, the belts and buckles. He debated for a minute, then pulled off the tight leather pants as well, leaving Yuugi just in his boxers. Although Seto was correct... how the hell did Yuugi wear boxers under tight leather trousers? Even if they were black silk with little tiny gold hieroglyphs all over them.
Seto stumbled back out just as Jounouchi finished pulling the blankets down. Seto made some sort of mumbled groan of gratitude as he then proceeded to fall face first onto the bed and began snoring. Jounouchi stared at him for a moment, then began working on removing his shoes and clothing as well. So not fair.
It turned out that Seto was wearing dark snug speedo-style underwear under his pants, with a small 'KC' logo on them, which was something that Jounouchi really could have gone his entire life without knowing. Seto was just a little bit -too- invested in his company sometimes. Actually, it was probably a good thing that he hadn't discovered the logo thing that -years- ago because he never would have let Seto live it down.
It took more effort to get Yuugi's tiny top off of Seto's broad frame, but he eventually managed it. Although the stretched out shirt was never going to be the same.
Convinced that they weren't going anywhere for a while, he covered them up with the blankets and turned to go change into his own pyjamas. He stopped before he got to the doorway, went back and pulled the blankets back down, took a few pictures of the sleeping duellists, covered them back up and went to his room to change clothes.
It momentarily threw him, walking into his own room and finding it actually clean for a change, even though he had been the one to do it over the course of the week. He took care of that by taking some of the clothing he had left behind and throwing it around the room so it had that 'lived in' feel to it again before changing out of his clothing. It felt so good to ditch the heavy clothing.
His mood improved by being -home- and wearing just pyjama pants, he wandered across the hall to knock on Mokuba's door. There was a slight pause and then Noa opened the door, the virtual boy yawning as he did so. "Just checking in." Jounouchi whispered.
"Everything okay?" Mokuba questioned from the bed, a few books and papers scattered across it.
"Yeah. They just passed out. Thanks for taking yourselves home." Jounouchi smiled, slipping inside and ruffling Noa's hair. "Everything cool here?"
"Yup." Mokuba stretched and Jounouchi noticed with some amusement that Mokuba's current sleep shirt was an old threadbare t-shirts he'd stolen from Jounouchi a while back that said 'One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor' on it. "Finishing up a bit of homework and a few dastardly plans. You okay?"
"Just trying to figure out what your brother's up to." Jounouchi smiled crookedly.
Mokuba laughed. "Good luck with that." Mokuba was the closest person to Seto and even he had trouble following his brother's train of thought on occasion.
"We're going to make an early night of it." Noa said quietly, leaning against Jounouchi's arm. "Been a stressful couple of weeks."
That was a definite understatement. "Yup. Your brother and Yuugi are probably going to wake up in the morning hung-over and hurting, so feel free to break out the jumping up and down and the percussion instruments to wake them up."
"I feel like fried foods for breakfast." A look of pure devilment briefly flickered Mokuba's face before being replaced by a mask of angelic innocence. "Bacon and onions. How about you, Noa?"
"I have a copy of Tchaikovosky's Overture of 1812." Noa said thoughtfully. "And access to the mansion-wide intercom and sound-system."
Jounouchi grinned. Gods, the boys were brats. But they were -his- brats, and he was damn proud of them. "Just for a little while guys. Don't want to actually torture them to death. Although we may need you in the office tomorrow, depending on how bad the hangover is."
"Already re-arranging his schedule." Mokuba assured him. "He's got a pretty light day tomorrow anyway, it shouldn't be a problem if he goes in sometime around the early afternoon."
"Thanks, Mokuba." Jounouchi relaxed slightly. It was always good to know that there was someone watching their back.
"No problem." Mokuba waved it off. All part of the job being part of the Kaiba household. "Go crash or something, you have to deal with them in the morning anyway."
"Yeah, thanks." Jounouchi muttered darkly. He gave Noa a one-armed hug, since Noa always seemed to be starved for hugs and waved to Mokuba, who didn't like them quite as much. "Sleep well you two. Call me if you need anything."
"G'night Jounouchi." Mokuba waved back with fond exasperation. "See you tomorrow."
"Pleasant dreams." Noa hugged him back before releasing him and floating back towards the bed to hover around Mokuba's shoulders. Jounouchi grinned and let himself out. He sighed, making a quick mental list of things to grab before crashing.
He made a quick trip to the kitchen to find a couple of pitchers, fill them with ice and a grab a couple of glasses.Then he raided some of the guest-rooms for empty wastebaskets that didn't have the wire mesh sides before returning to Seto's room. He set one wastebasket on either side of the bed just in case someone couldn't make it to the bathroom in time, then filled up the pitchers with water and set those next to the bed as well.
After a moment's thought, he checked the medicine cabinet for painkillers that didn't have tylenol or acetominophen in them. Having one's liver explode on them from acute alcohol poisoning was -not- a good thing, although he had been damn tempted to pull it on a couple of people when he was younger. Taking a couple of advil or ibuprofen before they went to bed probably would have helped with their hangovers, but it'd been a couple of years since he'd had to deal with drunks and he hadn't remembered at the time. Oh, well.
Preparations complete, or as complete as they were going to get at the moment, Jounouchi crawled into bed between his two sleeping friends and curled up to sleep. He took a deep breath and relaxed as both Yuugi and Seto moved closer towards him, seeking bodyheat.
He was home, he was safe, his friends and family were safe, he was home...
And his brain proceeded to run in circles for the next several hours, trying to untangle the question of Seto, Yuugi and himself.
+++ To Be Continued +++
the other drunk pic
Thanks to everyone who answered our poll about Seto's undies... think we're going to have to play with that some more later. ^_______^
Con't from here.
+++
Jounouchi walked in to find that the nature of the Duel had... changed somewhat during the time it took to escort Noa and Mokuba to the limo and back.
His first clue was the Rude Kaiser rutting with a Beaver Warrior instead of attacking it with it's twin axe blades.
"Um... Yuugi?" He ventured.
"Hiiiiiii, Jou~nou~chi-kuuuuuuuuun." Yuugi drawled happily, waving at him as he listed at an angle that would not have been possible for the sane. Jounouchi spared a brief wonder if it was because of Seto's coat of doom which almost seemed to keep upright him on the tiny raised platform.
"Hi, Yuugi." He smiled weakly back and waved. "Hi, Seto."
"Katsuya." Seto said with a great deal of dignity, shuffling a cardboard cutout of fish into his hand of cards.
"You two are completely drunk." He deadpanned.
"No." Yuugi and Seto declared with varying degrees of serious, sobriety and stability. "M'mot drunk!"
"Suuuuuure you're not... " Jounouchi drawled to himself, getting a hunch that this evening was going to be just a little bit more interesting than he'd previously thought. "... So, what are you doing?"
"Kaiba-kun said I could." Yuugi smiled, pointing somewhat in Seto's direction, if Jounouchi was reading the wobbly arm movements correctly. "Because he didn't like 'Chabbudai Kaeshi'."
"'Return a Low Dining Table' is not a honourable card." Seto informed them sourly, listing to the left.
"A low table appears under the monsters," Yuugi informed Jounouchi in what looked like it was supposed to be a conspiratorial manner but was anything but. "And flips hiiiigh up into the air. It destroys all of my monsters, then an equal number of the opponents monsters. Kaiba-kun's mad because not only did I have more monsters than him on the field, mine were all smallllllll little itty ones. So I still had life points left over his were all gone."
"Sounds like a deus ex machina to me." Jounouchi muttered before clearing his throat and speaking louder. "So now what are you playing?"
"Duel Monsters." Yuugi said as if it should be perfectly obvious. "But Kaiba-kun said that if I was gonna make schtuff up, I should make up fun stuff. So we did. See?"
Yuugi pointed to a Spear Dragon intertwined with Blackland Fire Dragon. "That was Kaiba-kun's idea. The one with the most attack points tops."
A Horned Imp ran by chasing a Mystic Horseman. Briefly, Jounouchi wondered why the centaur wasn't chasing, say, Mystical Elf, then dismissed the image from his mind.
"So what are you two duelling over this time?" Jounouchi asked, projecting as much of a calm, relaxed aura as he could. He was tranquil, he was serene, he was unruffled, he was cool, he was fine...
"You." Yuugi hiccupped.
.... He was completely lost. "Huh?"
"Winner gets to fuck you first." Yuugi informed him matter-of-factly.
"Hey." Seto frowned. "I thought winner gets a blow-job."
"We can do that too." Yuugi breezily assured Seto, nodding hard enough to pitch him forward.
"Huh?" Jounouchi repeated. He took off his headset and rubbed his ears, sure that he'd misheard that. "What?!"
"Kaiba-kun likes you." Yuugi said, swaying backwards. "But I like you too. So we were duelling over who gets to fuck you first. But Kaiba-kun says that the last duel wasn't a fair duel and I don't care how many times we kick his ass, so we're duelling again."
"And the loser gives the winner a blow-job." Seto reminded Yuugi.
"-And the winner gives the loser a blow-job." Yuugi agreed amiably. "So double win. How good are you at blow-jobs anyway, Kaiba-kun?"
Seto shrugged. Jounouchi felt his brain hurt.
...Yuugi liked him? -Liked- him liked him, like he and Seto liked each other? In a carnal way? Since when? Why had he not found this out before now?
How much sex had he missed out that he could have had before now?!
"Wait... wait... back it up." Jounouchi ran a hand through his hair, trying to get the thinking processes -out- of his pants. "I thought you two still didn't like each other."
"It works thusly." Seto said, summoning Peten the Dark Clown, who giggled and began eyeing the Mystic Horseman lasciviously. "The only person Katsuya is allowed to cheat on me with is Yuugi. Yuugi is not allowed to cheat on Katsuya. Except with me."
"And you?" Jounouchi questioned.
"I am a Kaiba." Seto informed them seriously. "Therefore I am not permitted to cheat on either of you." He didn't look terribly unhappy at that prospect. In fact, he looked downright smug over it.
"Right." Jounouchi said, rubbing his forehead. "Tell you what. The two of you come down from there and one of you can fuck me and I'll give a blow-job to the other one. Just not at the same time, okay?"
"Okay, Jou~nou~chi-kuuuun." Yuugi said easily. A little too easily. Jounouchi jerked his head up to look suspiciously at his best friend, who smiled back at him. Smirked. Leered.
Sweet innocent Yuugi, with whom Jounouchi had naively shared his porn with for years. Sweet innocent Yuugi who played a Strategy style deck. Sweet innocent Yuugi who'd just outmanoeuvred him before Jounouchi had realised that there was anything to manoeuvre.
.... fuck.
Literally.
"How shall we decide who gets what?" Seto inquired politely as Yuugi's monsters began to vanish from the field and Jounouchi's stomach landed somewhere about his feet.
"That's what Jun-Ken-Po is for." Yuugi informed him brightly.
"Best two out of three?" Seto asked as his monsters also vanished from the field.
"Perfect."
"What have the two of you been drinking?" Jounouchi questioned as his stomach returned back to it's usual location in time to tie itself into butterfly knots. "And how much have you had?"
"Tequila!" Yuugi beamed at him. "It tastes -really- bad at first, but after a while it's okay."
Jounouchi muffled a groan into his hand. When tequila started tasting good, that meant that it was time to STOP. "... And how much?"
"We finished a bottle together." Seto informed him, swaying in Jounouchi's direction as he put his deck away.
In other words, drinking contest. No wonder. Yeah, this night had just got to heck in a hand-basket hadn't it? Jounouchi sighed, running a hand through his hair again before putting his head set back on. "Right. So long as the plans are settled, why don't we head back to the house?"
"We could play here." Yuugi said cheerfully as the hydraulic platforms began their decent to the ground.
Riiiiiiight. Cause video camera surveillance and hard surfaces were your friend. "Beds, Yuugi."
"Ooooooooo." Yuugi grinned, a distant expression in his eyes as he swayed dangerously backwards, almost off the platform. "Okay."
Never allow Yuugi to drink anything ever again, Jounouchi made a mental note. Never. Never ever. Sure Yuugi was cute while tipsy, but he lacked any sort of survival instinct and that was Bad. With underscores and big sparkly letters. He really didn't want to think about the types of cards that were going to come out of tonight's adventure.
Jounouchi tried not to stare as Seto walked over towards him, hips swaying fluidly in his figure-hugging leather trousers, the extremely tight black shirt creeping up Seto's abdomen again, showing off his belly button. Bellllllly button... Seto had a navel.
Of course Seto had a navel, everyone had a navel and it wasn't like Seto was a cloned test tube baby but... He usually didn't get to -see- Seto's belly button. And it was flirting with him. Seto's belly button was totally flirting with him. Jounouchi nearly whimpered. This was so not fair. Why did he have to be the responsible one right now? If he was drunk too, he could do something about the belly button. Like lick it and watch Seto squirm. Or lick Seto's long elegant neck, which was freed from it's usual camouflage of the turtleneck. Or his partially naked collarbones...
Jounouchi quickly cleared his throat and glanced over at Yuugi, who was making his wobbly way over. "Yo."
"Hiiiiiiiii." Yuugi drawled happily, pitching forward and wrapping his arms around Jounouchi's waist. "Mmm.... warm."
"Thank you, Yuugi." Jounouchi smiled and patted his best friend's spiky hair. "Now please get your hand off my butt."
"Awwww." Yuugi pouted, but did so, his hand sliding back up north. Jounouchi jumped slightly as another hand, much larger hand replaced it, Seto making a pleased rumble in Jounouchi's ear as he suddenly appeared right next to him.
"You too, Seto." Jounouchi scolded. "Limo first, then home, then groping."
Seto smirked, leaning slightly against Jounouchi as he tried ushering the two drunks towards the door. Yuugi appeared to have about three left feet and no right feet, giggling and blushing madly as Jounouchi hauled him through the locker bay through the judicious use of an arm around the smaller man's waist. Seto stayed pressed against him as well, despite his ability to walk in a straight line regardless of how much he swayed.
Fortunately the limo driver was where Jounouchi had requested, right outside the side door with motor running. Jounouchi muttered a quick prayer of thanks as he opened the door, glanced in to make sure it was empty --no teenagers-- before tossing Yuugi in. Yuugi seemed to think that this was great fun, giggling madly as he bounced on the seat. Jounouchi pushed Seto and his briefcase in and quickly followed, shutting the door behind him as Seto settled his long limbs in the seat.
Jounouchi scrambled to the front of the car, accidentally losing the long coat around his waist on the way and tapped on the divider, which rolled down at his signal. "Could you run an errand for me?" Jounouchi asked, kneeling on the seat to talk as the car pulled away. The driver nodded, murmuring a polite acknowledgement. It was part of the driver's job, but Jounouchi always preferred to ask. "Thanks. Needja ta stop by a convenience store and pick up a couple big bottles of water, maybe some juice if you feel like it and some of those bottled vitamin drinks."
"Hangover cure?" The driver inquired with thinly veiled amusement.
"Yeah." He glanced back at his two charges for the night and found them propped up against each other, near identical sappy smug possessive smiles on their faces as they watched him. Or more appropriately, his bent over ass. Seto he wasn't surprised by. But it was kind of unnerving to see Yuugi -openly- checking him out.
"Yo, Kaiba." He quickly turned around in the seat and sat down. "Where's your wallet?"
"What is my name, Katsuya?" Seto corrected sternly, raising an admonishing finger.
"Right... Seto." Jounouchi raised an eyebrow. It was one thing to call your former boss by their name in the privacy of your shared living area. It was another to say it in public. Or where other people could hear it. "Where is your wallet?"
Seto smirked. "One of three places." He said loftily as Yuugi giggled softly. "One of my trouser pockets, one of the coat pockets, or my briefcase."
"... And it's in which one?" Jounouchi hesitantly ventured, mentally tallying up how much money he had in his pockets. Just under a thousand yen, which wasn't going to get much at the convenience store. A large bottle of water was a couple hundred yen, never mind the vitamins...
"I suppose you will have to check and discover for yourself, won't you?" Seto said, sounding way too pleased about the prospect. Yuugi giggled, a small grin growing on his face.
Greeeeeat. The fondness for games hadn't disappeared. Jounouchi sighed as he leaned forward, grabbing his long coat and refastening it around his waist before getting within arms reach of the two jokers. He couldn't check the briefcase of doom without the security code, which he didn't have. Which left either Seto's tight pants or the large white coat that Yuugi was currently buried in.
... pants first. They'd be easier. He leaned over Seto, who watched him with lustful half-lidded eyes as Jounouchi ran his hands up Seto's thighs, finding nothing in those pockets. Seto did have very nice, firm thighs however, which was no doubt the point of this game.
"Lift your hips up please." He requested, trying not to show how much this was affecting him. Seto did as he'd been bid, Jounouchi running his hands around the waistband, then down Seto's lean hips and the curve of his butt. Nothing. "Thank you." He said quickly, drawing back before he gave into temptation and explored further.
So not fair, so not fair, soooooo not fair. He swallowed and turned towards Yuugi, who was smirking at him, a challenging light in his violet eyes. This would be so much easier if he could just grab Yuugi by the ankles, turn him upside down and shake him until everything in his pockets fell out.
"I've got a wallet too~!" Yuugi gleefully informed him. "Wanna guess where it is?"
"Not right at this moment." Jounouchi muttered, leaning forward and patting the coat, and therefore Yuugi's small frame down. For a small skinny guy, Yuugi was surprisingly well built, which was not doing anything to help Jounouchi's currently frame of mind. He found an appropriately sized bulge on the right hand side, about Yuugi's waist level, which would be about chest high for Seto. He opened the coat and reached inside, ignoring Yuugi's ticklish squirming as he did so, finding the wallet and pulling it out.
He scurried back to the front of the limo to talk to the nice, safe, sane driver up front, ignoring the two chortling duellists in the back. He opened Seto's wallet and pulled out a couple of thousand yen notes and a note from Mokuba informing his 'Niisama that he owed him two hundred-yen coins, three fifty-yen coins, a twenty-yen coin and seven five-yen coins. And that Mokuba was keeping the two one-yen coins, okay?
Jounouchi put the note back. The Kaiba brothers were really weird. "Here." He said, passing the money forward to the driver. "Large bottles of water, vitamins, and juice. You can get one for yourself too, if you want. And if they have it, peanut butter sandwiches. Give me a receipt if you would too, I wanna shove this in his face later."
"No problem." The driver agreed. "Screen up or down?"
"Up, please." Jounouchi said dryly. "But I'll give a shout if I need help."
"Sure." The privacy screen went back up, much to Jounouchi's relief. He just -knew- that whole 'What's my name' thing was going to get around. At least Seto hadn't decided that he must be called 'Master' or something stupid like that.
"Sometimes I think you two are more trouble than you're worth." He muttered, scooting forward again, pausing at the mini-bar to pull out a couple of bottles of water. He thought about it a moment and pulled out a couple of air-sick bags as well, just in case. Some people didn't take well to limo rides and they worked just as well as drunk bags.
"Here." He instructed, opening the bottles and passing them to his drunken friends. "Drink."
Seto made a thoughtful sound and took the bottle, taking a careful sip. Yuugi frowned at him. "What if it's poisoned?"
"It's not poisoned." Jounouchi said, exasperated. That was what the water was for, to flush the poisons that alcohol created out of their system. "Look." He took a sip of the bottle and handed it to Yuugi. "Now you."
"Hee hee." Yuugi chortled, taking the bottle and clutching it to his chest like it was a favourite toy before taking a sip. "Indirect kiss."
One of Seto's eyebrows rose as Jounouchi felt a blush slide across his cheeks. He'd fallen for one of Yuugi's schemes again, dammit. "Now why didn't I think of that?" The tall duellist mused, eyeing Jounouchi.
Jounouchi glared back. "No."
"Perhaps later, then." Seto decided, drinking some more of his water. Jounouchi sighed, sitting down on the floor of the limo, feeling much older than his twenty-one years.
"You could join us up here, Jou~nou~chi-kuuun." Yuugi said, tilting away from Seto. "There's room."
"Not just yet." Jounouchi waved it off. "Finish your bottle of water first."
Yuugi eyed Seto's half-finished bottle speculatively. "No more drinking contests." Jounouchi scolded sternly. "If you throw up, you're the one who has to clean out the limo."
"We could lean out the window!" Yuugi helpfully offered. "Then it wouldn't be in the limo."
"I'd make you go back and -lick- it off the ground." Jounouchi growled.
"I do believe Katsuya is rather annoyed at us." Seto said mildly, reaching out and tugging the smaller duellist towards him. Yuugi made a sulky face as he leaned back against Seto, looking like a petulant child who wasn't allowed to play his favourite game. Jounouchi ignored it for the moment, taking the opportunity for a quick breather while they finished their water.
He still couldn't get his brain around Yuugi propositioning him. He'd known Yuugi for what? Five? Six years now? And he'd never known that Yuugi was interested in him. Hell, they'd pretty much shared a bed for a year, after Yuugi's Other Self left, still did on occasion, and he'd never seen any sign of Yuugi being interested in him as anything other than a close friend, or a brother.
He wasn't quite sure how he felt about it. Yeah, sure he loved Yuugi. But he didn't know if he loved Yuugi like -that-.
However, he was sure of one thing. He didn't want to lose Yuugi, or their friendship. Heh. First letters of their names, 'Yu' and 'Jou', combined meant Unity or Friendship. He'd said that they were friends for life and he meant that, no matter what.
The limo pulled to a stop in front of a convenience store and the driver got out. "Huh?" Yuugi questioned, lifting his head and watching the driver walk into the small shop.
"I asked him to pick up a few things." Jounouchi said, feeling calmer, though no less confused. At least he could take care of them in the mean time. "Have either of you eaten since breakfast?"
Seto shrugged. Yuugi looked confused. Jounouchi was pretty sure Seto hadn't eaten lunch since Jounouchi had been nose deep in paperwork most of the day and therefore unable to chase him down and make him eat. And Yuugi he wasn't sure about, this was the first he'd seen of his friend all day. So therefore the Magic 8 Ball mostly likely read 'All Signs Point Towards No' or 'Question Hazy, Try Again Later'. "I'm going to take that as a 'No'." He remarked, running a hand over his head and messing up his hair.
Yuugi hiccuped in response and started humming something slightly off-key, mumbling occasionally. It took Jounouchi a little bit to catch the line 'And really bad eggs' before he realised that Yuugi was humming the theme from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Seto started joining in on the 'Yo-ho, Yo-ho' choruses and Jounouchi just let them be. At least it gave them something to occupy themselves with.
The driver knocked on the window a moment later and he slipped onto the seat next to Yuugi to roll down the window. "Here you go, sir." The driver said, handing him two plastic bags. "Water, juice, vitamins and they did have peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches."
"Thanks." Jounouchi grinned. This would hopefully make things in the morning slightly easier. It'd be best for their hangovers if they could purge themselves of the toxins tonight by throwing up the alcohol, but they were both big boys and should have known better. And Jounouchi didn't want to deal with them vomiting, so therefore they could deal with the consequences in the morning. But he would do his best to take some of the edge off tonight. "Did you get yourself a juice as well?"
"I got a canned tea." The driver nodded, then handed Jounouchi the change, wrapped up in the receipt.
"Good." Jounouchi smiled. It sucked buying for other people and not being able to get anything for yourself. "If you could take us the long way home, I'd really appreciate it." It would be easier to get food and water into them if they were trapped in the car instead of playing hide-and-go-seek all over the mansion.
"Of course." The driver nodded with an amused smile, tipping their hat slightly. "Oh yes, and this is for you, sir." The driver handed Jounouchi a separate, smaller bag.
"Huh?" Jounouchi took it and glanced inside. It was a disposable camera. He raised an eyebrow. The driver cleared their throat, subtly gesturing to both Seto and Yuugi, who were poking at the bags with child-like curiosity without actually opening them.
"For posterity, sir." The driver grinned and gave him a small tip of the hat before walking back up to the drivers seat. Jounouchi laughed as he rolled the window back up. It wouldn't even matter if he took any pictures, much less developed them, just the fact that -he- had a camera and -they- were drunk would give him blackmail material for years. Jokingly, of course. For the sake of their friendship.
"Here. Drink." Jounouchi opened the larger bottles of water and handed the bottles to them to drink before digging around for the sandwiches. It was the weirdest thing, but he'd noticed that the few times he'd drunk in the past that he craved peanut-butter sandwiches. But they were sweet and salty and protein and seemed to do the job, so he wasn't going to question it too much. There were a couple of cheap onigiri at the bottom as well which he was grateful to see. "We've got some sandwiches to share too." He informed them.
"Okay." Yuugi agreed, and then attempted to climb either into or over his lap. Unfortunately this coincided with the driver taking off, sending the small duellist sprawled all over Jounouchi.
"Yuugi!" Jounouchi yelped, frantically grabbing the water bottle before it had a chance to spill. "What are you doing?!"
"Sharing." Yuugi hiccuped, sliding in-between Jounouchi and the door. "Jou~nou~chi-kuuun sandwich, see?"
"You did say us would join you after we finished our water bottles." Seto pointed out, the slurring dyslexic voice of reason.
Jounouchi muffled another sigh. He had, hadn't he? "All right." He agreed. "You, scoot over so we all fit comfortably. Yuugi, ditch the coat, would you? I don't think there's enough room back here for it."
"Okay~!" Yuugi grinned as he wiggled out of the long white coat as Seto smirked and slid over on the leather seats just enough so that Jounouchi could sit in the middle. Which he did, taking the bags with him and setting them on the ground between his feet. Yuugi giggled and snuggled up on his other side, cradling the water-bottle in his lap, Seto's coat discarded to the middle of the limo. "I can ditch the shirt too~!"
"No, that's okay." Jounouchi said quickly, unwrapping a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich and thrusting it at Yuugi. "Eat that instead."
"Mou..." Yuugi sulked, poking at the sandwich, the long sleeves of Seto's shirt falling over his hands. "I'd prefer a hamburger."
He probably would, but they didn't have one handy and Jounouchi didn't entirely feel like going to get one. Jounouchi handing another sandwich to Seto. "Eat."
"Yes, Katsuya." Seto said obediently, the smirk on his face silently stating that the billionaire would prefer to be eating something other than the sandwich. Or someone. Someone next to him and blond. Jounouchi rolled his eyes and pulled out a sandwich for himself as well.
"You will worship the ground I walk on later for this." He assured Seto before taking a bite of his sandwich. Seto snorted, like he didn't believe it, but started to eat anyway. At least Jounouchi had Seto trained by now to eat what ever Jounouchi handed him. He poked Yuugi, who seemed to be more interested in dissecting the bread from the sticky-sweet goodness. "Eat. Or else."
Yuugi grumbled but began eating anyway, alternating with long draughts of water to clear the sticky peanut-butter out of his mouth. Jounouchi resisted the urge to smirk. It got both food and water into the small man. Double victory. Seto ate his with slow deliberation, alternating with measured sips of his water bottle.
He waited until they had both managed to keep about half of their sandwiches down before pulling out the small brown bottles of liquid vitamins. He opened those as well and passed them to his friends to drink. Both made faces but dutifully gulped the liquid down as fast as they could, Yuugi making a face as he finished his. Jounouchi chuckled and handed him a juice to drink to clear the taste out. Which then led to Seto wanting one as well.
Jounouchi almost felt like it was a game between Seto and Yuugi... that Jounouchi had to treat them equally, give them equal amounts of attention. It was a game he wasn't particularly sure on the rules on, much less how to win. It was kind of making his head hurt because it was like they were in competition with each other, only not.
He sighed and leaned back in the seat, Seto pressed up comfortably on one side of him, Yuugi nustled against him on the other. Sharing a Jounouchi sandwich indeed. The other duellists were quiet and Jounouchi could see them coming off of the drunken high. Time for the crash.
Yuugi was the most noticeable one, he went from cuddling to actually leaning. "Jounouch'?" Yuugi asked softly, dropping the 'i' from Jounouchi's name like he usually did. Only it was usually a harsher clipped sound on the end, not a drunken mumble.
"Yeah, Yuugi?"
"I -hic- messed up, didn't I?" Yuugi said sadly, his head turned to stare out the window. "I shouldn't have said anything."
Jounouchi sighed, wrapping an arm around Yuugi's shoulders. "You're drunk, Yuugi." Funny, he thought tequila made people's clothes come off and wine that made people tell the truth. Wasn't it that Greek saying? V... v... v..., no wait, that was 'I came, I saw, I conquered'. That was Seto, not Yuugi.
Yuugi hiccuped. "But you're not." He pointed out, from the depths of supposed despair. "An' I won't remember much in the morning, but you will. And now I've given you a bad mammary."
"I think he means 'Memory'." Seto commented quietly, making boob groping motions on his own flat muscular chest. "Breasts don't have him."
"Shh." Jounouchi nudged Seto. He'd figured that out on his own, thanks. Although now he couldn't get the image of talking cleavage out of his head. "And no you didn't, Yuugi." He'd just been surprised a bit. More than a bit. A lot.
"Yes I did." Yuugi insisted. "But... you're going away too now. Like Ate -hic- my Other Self did an' I don't wanna let you go. So if I won and didn't... didn't.... then Kaiba couldn't either. And if we did -hiccup-, I thought maybe I could hold on to that little piece of you... even after you left." He laughed softly, almost bitterly. "It's stupid, I know. But I didn't say anything last... last... -hic- and I love you too and m'happy for you an' Kaiba-kun and I'm so afraid of ending alone again because it hurts and it sucks and I shouldn't have SAID anything because now you're gonna -hic- haaaate meeee..."
The last was said in a soft keening wail that almost broke Jounouchi's heart. Yuugi had played a Shadows, Silence and Toys deck since his last duel with his Other Self, because while the Shadows were a part of him, like they were a part of Atemu, he wasn't Chaos and Black Magic. He was Games and Toys and seeing everything but never saying what he saw. The best and worst parts of being a child really.
"I'm not going anywhere, Yuugi." He said softly, wrapping his arm around his small friend. "Best friends. I don't hate you and I'm not leaving."
Atemu had left, because no matter how much he had loved Yuugi, this was not his time or place. His had ended thousands of years ago. And his presence here had drawn trouble to them like huge-firebreathing moths to a bug zapper. By leaving and sealing the Sennen Items and the Shadow Games again, he had been able to finally bring some peace to those around him by setting down his swords. But by leaving, he'd ripped a chunk out of Yuugi. And Jounouchi knew that first hand.
"Yes, you are." Yuugi muttered miserably. "Everyone does. Honda doesn't come over since he moved in with Otogi unless it's to bitch about you... Anzu stopped talking to me after she started dating Mai. Ryou doesn't have time since he got together with Malik-"
"What?!" When had that happened?!
"... Or is Malik dating Rashid?" Yuugi mumbled, his speech becoming slower. "Rashid and Isis? I can't remember. Something. Massive orgy in Egypt. Foursome. What will the children look like? Anyway. Everyone finds someone else and they forget about me. And now you are... an' m'all alone again."
Jounouchi sighed. It was really hard to argue with drunks. They got the weirdest ideas in their head that had nothing to do with logic. And then would get stubborn about it. If it wasn't such a serious discussion he'd shift the discussion to something else. Like cats. "I don't know what to tell you, Yuugi." He finally said as Yuugi's eyes started to drift shut, still clutching the half full water bottle to his chest. "Except to show you that I'm not going anywhere. Okay?"
Yuugi made a soft mewling sound before his eyes closed, snoring softly as he fell asleep. The snoring would get louder later, but for the moment it was still muted. Jounouchi had never been able to figure out what was it about alcohol that made people snore like a herd of mating walruses.
"You knew, didn't you?" Jounouchi asked, leaning his head against the back of the seat and twining the fingers of his free hand with Seto's unusually warm ones. Seto squeezed his hand back, his own head against the back of the seat, eyes closed. Seto's belly button flirted with Jounouchi some more, but he ignored it.
"That he loved you as more than a friend? Yes." Seto said seriously. "We... talked. A while back. He did not know you for to wish."
... wish for you to know, Jounouchi mentally corrected. "So what do you get out of this?" Jounouchi asked, frowning. "Ya wouldn't orchestrate this without being able to profit from it." He liked Seto, really he did, but the business mogul was not exactly known for his altruistic motives.
Seto smirked, eyes still closed as he ran his thumb across Jounouchi's knuckles. "Ask me again tomorrow, and see we shall."
And now they had the wise words of Yoda. Great. He elbowed Seto in the ribs. "No falling asleep. I can't carry you up the stairs if you pass out."
"Then kindly request of the driver that we be taken to our palace of residence haste post." Seto drawled. "This is the third time we've been around the block."
"Right." Jounouchi removed his arm from around Yuugi, who fell onto Jounouchi's lap and drooled, to hit the intercom button. "Home, please."
"No problem, sir." The driver said briskly, making an abrupt turn.
"Thanks." Jounouchi sighed, closing his eyes for a minute. Yuugi snored louder, much to Seto's snickering amusement. Jounouchi debated nudging him again, then reached down and pulled the smaller bag out of the pile at his feet, retrieving the disposable camera.
"What doing are you?" Seto inquired as Jounouchi unwrapped the camera and snapped a shot of the sleeping businessman.
"Insurance." Jounouchi said briskly, before taking a quick picture of Yuugi drooling on his lap. He stretched an arm out, trying to get a shot with all three of them in it but wasn't sure if he got it or not. He took a couple more of both Seto and Yuugi, for future reference.
The driver pulled into the driveway of the Kaiba Mansion, waited a minute for the gates to open before smoothly driving up to the front and parking close to the front steps. "Thanks!" Jounouchi shouted as he climbed over Yuugi to open the door. He stuck the camera in his pocket and turned around to grab the sleeping duellist. Yuugi made shuffling noises in his sleep as he cuddled up to Jounouchi, some how gaining ten kilos in the manner of small children and pets seemed to as he did so.
Seto had an amused look on his face as he followed Jounouchi out, with a great deal more grace as he carefully placed his long limbs so as to not stumble. Which would be absolutely -terribly- improper for a Kaiba to do, of course. Jounouchi was privately convinced that there was a written list of commandments hidden somewhere in the house of things that 'Kaiba Were Not To Do'.
... evidently sex with cute blond guys with dog attributes wasn't one of those Not To Do things, thank the gods.
"Come on." He said motioning for Seto to follow him into the house. "Time for all good duellists to be in bed."
"And what about naughty ones?" Seto leered softly as they meandered up the stairs to the front door.
"Them too."
Seto smirked happily, in a smug 'I'm going to get laid' sort of way. Jounouchi rolled his eyes, ignoring the fact that he probably had a similar expression on his own face, even if it wasn't happening tonight. Yet another down side to getting drunk, it was a sexual inhibitor.
They made it inside and up the grand staircase up to the second floor and staggered down the maze of corridors to Seto's bedroom. One of these days he really needed to get a golf cart up here for nights like this, it would make things so much easier.
"Toilet." Seto hiccupped as they made it inside Seto's large room, the brunette rushing off to the side towards the bathroom. The door slammed shut behind him and Jounouchi winced. Well, hopefully that meant the water had done it's job.
He set Yuugi down on the bed and after a moment's thought, began working on removing clothing. The boots went, followed by Seto's shirt, the belts and buckles. He debated for a minute, then pulled off the tight leather pants as well, leaving Yuugi just in his boxers. Although Seto was correct... how the hell did Yuugi wear boxers under tight leather trousers? Even if they were black silk with little tiny gold hieroglyphs all over them.
Seto stumbled back out just as Jounouchi finished pulling the blankets down. Seto made some sort of mumbled groan of gratitude as he then proceeded to fall face first onto the bed and began snoring. Jounouchi stared at him for a moment, then began working on removing his shoes and clothing as well. So not fair.
It turned out that Seto was wearing dark snug speedo-style underwear under his pants, with a small 'KC' logo on them, which was something that Jounouchi really could have gone his entire life without knowing. Seto was just a little bit -too- invested in his company sometimes. Actually, it was probably a good thing that he hadn't discovered the logo thing that -years- ago because he never would have let Seto live it down.
It took more effort to get Yuugi's tiny top off of Seto's broad frame, but he eventually managed it. Although the stretched out shirt was never going to be the same.
Convinced that they weren't going anywhere for a while, he covered them up with the blankets and turned to go change into his own pyjamas. He stopped before he got to the doorway, went back and pulled the blankets back down, took a few pictures of the sleeping duellists, covered them back up and went to his room to change clothes.
It momentarily threw him, walking into his own room and finding it actually clean for a change, even though he had been the one to do it over the course of the week. He took care of that by taking some of the clothing he had left behind and throwing it around the room so it had that 'lived in' feel to it again before changing out of his clothing. It felt so good to ditch the heavy clothing.
His mood improved by being -home- and wearing just pyjama pants, he wandered across the hall to knock on Mokuba's door. There was a slight pause and then Noa opened the door, the virtual boy yawning as he did so. "Just checking in." Jounouchi whispered.
"Everything okay?" Mokuba questioned from the bed, a few books and papers scattered across it.
"Yeah. They just passed out. Thanks for taking yourselves home." Jounouchi smiled, slipping inside and ruffling Noa's hair. "Everything cool here?"
"Yup." Mokuba stretched and Jounouchi noticed with some amusement that Mokuba's current sleep shirt was an old threadbare t-shirts he'd stolen from Jounouchi a while back that said 'One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor' on it. "Finishing up a bit of homework and a few dastardly plans. You okay?"
"Just trying to figure out what your brother's up to." Jounouchi smiled crookedly.
Mokuba laughed. "Good luck with that." Mokuba was the closest person to Seto and even he had trouble following his brother's train of thought on occasion.
"We're going to make an early night of it." Noa said quietly, leaning against Jounouchi's arm. "Been a stressful couple of weeks."
That was a definite understatement. "Yup. Your brother and Yuugi are probably going to wake up in the morning hung-over and hurting, so feel free to break out the jumping up and down and the percussion instruments to wake them up."
"I feel like fried foods for breakfast." A look of pure devilment briefly flickered Mokuba's face before being replaced by a mask of angelic innocence. "Bacon and onions. How about you, Noa?"
"I have a copy of Tchaikovosky's Overture of 1812." Noa said thoughtfully. "And access to the mansion-wide intercom and sound-system."
Jounouchi grinned. Gods, the boys were brats. But they were -his- brats, and he was damn proud of them. "Just for a little while guys. Don't want to actually torture them to death. Although we may need you in the office tomorrow, depending on how bad the hangover is."
"Already re-arranging his schedule." Mokuba assured him. "He's got a pretty light day tomorrow anyway, it shouldn't be a problem if he goes in sometime around the early afternoon."
"Thanks, Mokuba." Jounouchi relaxed slightly. It was always good to know that there was someone watching their back.
"No problem." Mokuba waved it off. All part of the job being part of the Kaiba household. "Go crash or something, you have to deal with them in the morning anyway."
"Yeah, thanks." Jounouchi muttered darkly. He gave Noa a one-armed hug, since Noa always seemed to be starved for hugs and waved to Mokuba, who didn't like them quite as much. "Sleep well you two. Call me if you need anything."
"G'night Jounouchi." Mokuba waved back with fond exasperation. "See you tomorrow."
"Pleasant dreams." Noa hugged him back before releasing him and floating back towards the bed to hover around Mokuba's shoulders. Jounouchi grinned and let himself out. He sighed, making a quick mental list of things to grab before crashing.
He made a quick trip to the kitchen to find a couple of pitchers, fill them with ice and a grab a couple of glasses.Then he raided some of the guest-rooms for empty wastebaskets that didn't have the wire mesh sides before returning to Seto's room. He set one wastebasket on either side of the bed just in case someone couldn't make it to the bathroom in time, then filled up the pitchers with water and set those next to the bed as well.
After a moment's thought, he checked the medicine cabinet for painkillers that didn't have tylenol or acetominophen in them. Having one's liver explode on them from acute alcohol poisoning was -not- a good thing, although he had been damn tempted to pull it on a couple of people when he was younger. Taking a couple of advil or ibuprofen before they went to bed probably would have helped with their hangovers, but it'd been a couple of years since he'd had to deal with drunks and he hadn't remembered at the time. Oh, well.
Preparations complete, or as complete as they were going to get at the moment, Jounouchi crawled into bed between his two sleeping friends and curled up to sleep. He took a deep breath and relaxed as both Yuugi and Seto moved closer towards him, seeking bodyheat.
He was home, he was safe, his friends and family were safe, he was home...
And his brain proceeded to run in circles for the next several hours, trying to untangle the question of Seto, Yuugi and himself.
+++ To Be Continued +++
the other drunk pic