Yu-Gi-Oh! Fan Fiction ❯ Babylon ❯ Babylon ( Chapter 1 )

Disclaimer: I don't own any of them.

AN: Getting jumped by random plotbunnies is less amusing than it sounds. Shounen-ai, cursing, and very pissed off boys.

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An afternoon study session. They were all falling behind, every last one of them, and because no one else could understand, they latched onto each other almost desperately.

Even he, the loner, had been dragged into this mess somehow or another, and even with all his genius he couldn't think of a damn way to get out of it.

He hated it.

Hated being trapped in Yugi Motou's house, in his room, sitting on his floor and glaring down at his calculus. Hated being surrounded by chattering teenagers, hated having to be of help to them, hated needing their help and their goddamned charity with a passion.

High school was the seventh circle of hell. Being here was the ninth.

A soft jingle from below. The game shop had closed for the night, and if he wasn't mistaken, that was the voice of Yugi's grandfather, shooing away a teenaged boy who hadn't truly breathed the air in over three millenia.

Footsteps coming up the stairs, soft as fog and just as mysterious.

On the bed, Yugi abruptly straightened up from the intent perusal of his history book, a quick, gorgeous smile revealing a flash of white teeth and pink tongue.

Ah, and that was the problem, wasn't it? Not this shit with derivatives and things that he couldn't give less of a damn about, but that pretty creature wrapped up in black leather and gold, an enticing little package with eyes that had been known to melt the harshest of men.

The door slid open, and in walked (no, he didn't walk, the bastard swept in because he didn't have a fucking clue as how to do something as plebian as walk like the rest of the mere mortals who wandered the earth) a boy who wasn't, a pharaoh who couldn't remember his reign, a darkness that he hated so damn much...

Cold crimson flicked over them all, analyzing them then dismissing them as if the peasants weren't worth his time. He didn't give a damn about them - about any of them. Anzu was fooling herself, silly girl. She could do better than an amensiac Egyptian spirit anyway.

Besides, anyone with half a brain could see that Yugioh only had eyes for one creature, and it was no girl to whom he was so devoted.

A heartstopping smile and smooth, pale skin, a soul that burned with painful brilliance, aching wisdom hidden behind coy lashes and trapped in pure amethyst crystal.

Dammit, he sounded like a fucking poet. But hell, whose soul didn't turn into mush when Yugi Motou was around?

...and that same, glorious smile, sweet and sly and secret, was meant for one creature as well.

He really hated the silent communication, the glassy blankness that slid into both pairs of eyes as they whispered to each other, as if the others, best friends or no, were not worthy of what passed not from their lips but from their minds.

He hated the careless grace with which the slim, leather-clad body collapsed onto the bed, those ruby eyes fixed with mischievous intent upon an angel. Hated the soft brush of porcelain fingers that weren't quite dainty against thick hair, brushing away feathery golden bangs from a beautiful face, Yugi's eyes bright and brilliant as he met the crimson gaze.

Hated the softness of the smile that curved the pharaoh's full lips - hated that breathtaking smile that only ever fell upon Yugi.

The bed was the one place none of their quaint little "gang" had dared to touch, a place that was undisputably Yugi's, moreso than the room, moreso than the floor, more than could be found in the scattered games and puzzles that littered every piece of furniture in the cramped quarters. Soft sheets and blankets thick enough to melt in - smelling of chocolate and cotton candy and fresh apples and summer.

Yami had tumbled onto the sacred space with the ease of long practice - and Yugi had voiced not a single word of protest.

Yugi... Yugi whose soft mouth was pursed in a sly smirk, Yugi whose fingertips were still stroking thick, dark hair, Yugi who had slid down to lie on his chest and who was completely ignoring his history book. Yugi who cared not a whit about the rest of them, too caught up in his yami to give a damn about anyone else.

He hated Yami more than ever, now, hated the way they gazed deeply into each other's minds and souls, hated the tanned hand that cupped Yugi's cheek, hated the ease and grace and possession that rolled off of the two in waves so strong they were nearly palpable.

Around him, soft shifting, the others packing away their things, eyes averted from the scene.

Self-imposed blinders, that what they wore. Not wanting to see it, not wanting to hate it, pretending it wasn't there and that it wasn't awful and horrible and wretched.

Pretending the passion hidden in every delicate line of Yugi's body didn't exist.

Pretending it wasn't reciprocated.

Then someone was pulling at his jacket, and he would have sneered and spat a scathing comment, but calm blue eyes locked on his own, flicked to the bed and back again, and he knew he would be silent. Sometimes you just didn't fuck with Anzu Mazaki.

He shuffled away with customary silence, glaring at the pharaoh as he swept imperially out of the room, the last to go.

Yugioh hadn't even noticed he was there, still intent on his hikari, leaning forward, no doubt to steal a taste of those tantalizing lips, rosy and moist and parted and just for him, always for him, always and forever for him.

He shut the door behind him and forced himself not to scream.

Fuck. Fuck. God-fucking damn it all to hell.

Fuck.

He wanted to pound in the door, to scream and cry and break things, wipe the smug look of ownership off that oh-so-perfect face, wanted to snatch up Yugi's soft sweet warmth and keep it all to himself because he was always so damnably cold, wanted to take and ravage and hold and pet and he didn't know how the fucking hell he was going to do that because that fated pair were just oh-so-fucking perfect together that it made his teeth rot and his stomach churn and bile rise in his throat.

Then a calloused hand slipped into his and tugged him away from the doorway. Numbly, he followed. Out of character for the great Seto Kaiba, yes, but so wasn't having his heart shattered into a thousand pieces. Again.

And here he'd thought it had turned to stone ages ago. Idiot.

The hand slipped from his own, raised to tug gently at his jacket. He turned eyes that burned with unshead tears down to meet a honey gaze. Him. The gods really must hate him. But there was something buried in his eyes - flittering through melting gold and amber.

Something that glimmered with awful understanding and excruciating agony.

"Let it go, Seto," he breathed, lashes dark against his pale face. "Let it go..."

When had the puppy gotten so observant? His eyes narrowed in suspicion, but all he said was, "What the hell are you talking about?"

A soft, painful-sounding laugh, the casual toss of his head, sending that same shimmering gold flying like so much loose silk. "And here I thought you were supposed ta be so damn brilliant."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he bit out, enraged and defensive, wanting to grasp that pale neck in his hands and squeeze.

A snort. "Asshole. You really don't fucking get it, do you?"

He glared hard enough to melt steel, but it had no effect on the sun's own brilliance.

Defiance, angry and bright. He hated it, hated the sympathy in his voice, hated the hatred he recognized as his own lurking deep within the soft tones. "C'mon, Kaiba. D'you think you were the only one ta fall for him?"

Fuck.

"D'ya think I didn't notice? Hell, did ya think Yami didn't notice? Yugi is his - and we're fucked if we even dare to think otherwise."

"Maybe you are," he hissed, slapping away the surprisingly gentle hands. "I don't give up so easily."

A pause, crystalline silence and soft, moist breath against his lips. An inch closer and they'd be kissing. "...fuck you, Kaiba."

His lips twisted into a sneer. "Coward."

"Coward?" he hissed, eyes bright and smoldering. Beautiful as all hell. "Who's braver: the one who knows enough to step away, or the one who fights even though he'll lose everything in the end?"

"I don't lose."

It was a lie, and they both knew it.

The challenge gleamed in his expression, but all he said was, "You keep telling yourself that, Kaiba. Keep telling yourself that until the day you stumble on them making out. Keep telling yourself that when they wander out past midnight and go dancing in all of the clubs that you've never seen. Keep telling yourself that when Yugi wears more than just that puzzle around his neck. Fuck, maybe they'll even invite you to the wedding."

He slammed his fist into that cold face, wanting to see it break, see it crumble. Fuck your cowardice, Jounouchi, and fuck you too. Damn you, why don't you shatter?

Jounouchi held still only for a moment, long bangs tumbled into his eyes, shielding whatever expression he wore. When he spoke, his voice was low and husky, rage lined in velvet and sliding down his skin smooth and bright as a knife.

"Fuck it. You're not worth this shit."

And he turned and stalked away, pausing only at the end of the hallway to give him a cold, searching look, more freezing than any other had ever leveled at him.

"You really don't understand a goddamn thing, do you?"

And just like that, he was gone.

...god dammit.

He leaned back against the closed doorway, heard soft mumbling and a delicate, heavenly giggle.

An angel fit for a devil.

The tears welled up again, but he refused to let them fall.

Seto Kaiba didn't fucking cry.

...shit.

Another broken promise, another dream unfulfilled.

Fucking perfect.

He didn't cry because the one he loved loved the one he hated.

He didn't cry because he was losing his precious self-control.

And he fucking didn't cry because Katsuya Jounouchi had walked away from him.

He didn't.

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