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Deliverance	By : thelostogg Category: Yu-Gi-Oh > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 8811 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh. I don't profit from these ramblings.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Chapter 11

                Seto was nothing if not a tolerant, patient man. He put up with squabbling idiots at work, incompetent public servants who thought too highly of themselves in his dealing with the government, and he even put up the occasional mistake among his security and domestic staff. The occasional mistake from his domestic staff usually involved not getting his suits pressed by the time he needed them, or failing to remember the favorite wine of a guest he had warned them about.
                The occasional mistake from his security staff was typically so minor that Seto only ever heard about them in a dull report several days later.
                So, he was a bit surprised when he entered the sitting room where he saw Mokuba sitting with Temari on the chaise lounge, rubbing her back and trying to sooth the calm fury in her eyes, and a man who looked, at least upon first glance, like his butler serving them tea and snacks. The butler, who upon more than a split second of examination didn’t even look Japanese, held the serving tray he carried in his left hand and held his right hand under it. His right hand appeared to be covered by a handkerchief, but Seto was getting better at picking up the outline of a pistol beneath cloth at this point.
                He averted his eyes almost immediately, and continued into the room at a slightly slower pace. He didn’t know why he did what he did next, but he shifted to the side slightly, trying to block Jounouchi from the man’s line of sight. It didn’t work, though. The butler’s eyes were glued to the door, and Seto saw them flash when Jou appeared from behind the door jam. The butler dropped the tray and began to raise him arm. Would he shoot through Seto to hit Jounouchi? Jounouchi had already made it quite clear that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot through Seto to hit a target. As a feeling of surging dread warred with the feeling of shame at doing something as stupid as trying to shield Jounouchi behind him, something popped a foot away from his ear. Something else flew past his ear, close enough that it brushed his hair as it moved past.
                Across the room, the butler, tray, and pistol all slowly clattered to the floor. Mokuba had hit the floor, brining Temari with him. She lay beneath him, quivering. Jou and Lynn casually strolled past him, Lynn checking the slide on his pistol. After he replaced the gun, he followed Jou over to the fallen man.
                “Now, aren’t you glad I’m around to make you get your shit together?”
                “I already said thank you,” Jou reminded him. “You know him?”
                “No. Pity. He had balls if he got this close.”
                “Hey, Kaiba, did this guy actually work for you?”
                “No,” Seto said, trying to keep himself breathing slowly as his own heartbeat began to pound like a jackhammer. Temari screaming on the floor was not helping matters.
                “Alright then,” said Jou. A couple of the cookies from the serving tray had landed on a side table. Jou picked one up and ate it while staring at the rapidly growing puddle of blood around the body. “Col,” he said, dusting off his hands and pulling out a new pair of blue rubber gloves, “You got any more of that biohazard powder?”
                Lynn, also dawning a pair of gloves, pulled the travel-sized baby powder bottle out of a pocket.
                Jou retrieved a small knife from the man’s neck, sprinkling the powder over both sides of the blade, and then meticulously dusted it off. Lynn quickly folded the body in half and glanced up at Jou. “I’m really poorly prepared today. Do you have an extra trash bag on you?”
                Jou produced a folded black garbage bag and handed it to him. With the same ease with which the two had cleaned up after themselves in the library, they quickly bagged the body and cleaned up the puddle of blood spreading across Seto’s tile floor.
                “There’s going to be residue,” Lynn complained in a quiet voice.
                “I’ve got some bleach,” Seto offered.
                “Nah,” Jou shook his head. “Bleach doesn’t break down chemically unless it’s mixed in with water. Even dried, it’s still fairly easy to detect. Ammonia will do if you’ve got some. Breaks down the cell structure and it evaporates. Hey, could you pop another one of those in my mouth?” Jou nodded towards the cookies. “I’m hungry.”
                “Finally thinking with your stomach again. Now that’s the Jououchi I remember,” Seto stepped closer to the body, surprised by how their casual, business like attitudes made it possible to ignore the corpse at his feet. Apparently calm was just as contagious and hysteria. Seto had killed people over the years, typically out of necessity and often while they were trying to hurt his baby brother, but he had always done so from a distance, and he had never hung around afterwards. He picked up a broken shortbread cookie and put it into Jou’s mouth. “I’ll go get some ammonia.”
                “No, no, I’ll get it. Best not to leave prints on the bottle.” He wiggled his blue fingers, reminding Seto that had rubber gloves on. “Try to calm her down.” Jou headed for the kitchen, twirling his knife as he went.
                Mokuba had gotten Temari up off of the floor, but now she appeared to be hyperventilating. Seto rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell phone. He typed a few quick keys to send a pre-typed message to Roland. A moment later, his head of security arrived at a run.
                “We’ve had a rather serious security breach,” Seto said casually, choosing his words for both his brother and his therapist’s sake. “An assassin just tried to attack me.”
                “Which one, sir?”
                “The dead one of the floor,” Seto nodded towards the body at his feet, now encased in a black plastic bag. “Jou and Mr. Grayson here just saved all of our lives with those quick reflexes of theirs.”
                Roland glanced down at the hyperventilating woman on the couch, and then at Mokuba, who looked like he was going to be sick again. A fatherly concern shown in his eyes and he watched Mokuba. “I’ll call half the night shift out of Kaiba Corp and have them come search the house, then have them stay to reinforce the guard on the gate and doors.”
                “Why?” Lynn asked, pulling the ties of the garbage bag closed and knotting them.
                “To keep my charges safe, Mr. Grayson.”
                Lynn huffed out a chuckle. “Joey’s not here, so I can be candid without worrying about stoking his ego… Think for a moment. I didn’t know this man personally, but I can tell you that he was good. He got in here, into a close range position, he handled his weapon with expertise and he was fast. He didn’t take out the first person to walk into the room, he wasn’t rushed or over excited, and he didn’t waste time chatting or tearing the place to pieces. He was a pro. I was not fast enough to deal with the situation with a knife. I appraised his posture and went for a gun. The kill shot, though, belongs to Joey. He managed a knife to the throat from twelve feet, before the man could even finish drawing his weapon, and before I could fire. Draw all of the conclusions you want to about Joey’s skill from that. Do you think that anyone confident enough to try and take Joey on in close quarters is going to care about how many guards they have to cut their way through to get to him? If someone else on Joey’s level enters this house to play, every single person you bring in here will be killed in the cross fire, and neither man is likely to notice them as anything other than parts of the scenery. One of the men who I know to be after Joey has killed innocent bystanders just because they triggered his peripheral vision and distracted him—he has killed innocent bystanders just for moving enough to draw his attention. In those circumstances, I would expect similar reactions from Joey, because it is the only logical course of action.”
                Roland seemed to shrink slightly as he listened to the smaller man.
                “Search the house, by all means, but I suspect that all you will find will be the bodies of anyone who tried to stop this man. If you insist on continuing with the course of action you just outlined, I won’t try to stop you. I would advise you to prepare statements for their next of kin, though.” With that, Lynn hoisted the garbage bag over his shoulder and grinned. “Now, if you could provide some suggestions about non-descript dumpsters in the area, and point me in the right direction, I’d appreciate it.”
                “You’re a madman!” Roland yelled. “You are all completely mad!”
                “I’m not,” Jou said with a happy smirk. He strolled in tossing the bottle of ammonia up and down like a football. “I am completely sane. If I were mad I’d be doing something really nuts, like crocheting his entrails or something.”
                Lynn tried to keep from giggling, but he couldn’t quiet manage it. “Oh, I love you, Joey.”
                “Or braiding swatches of his hair…” Joey continued. Lynn gave up and just laughed.
                Jou started laughing so hard that he bent over to try and keep breathing. It took him nearly a full minute to stop laughing, and then he sprinkled ammonia on the cleaned tile floor with a smile on his face.
                “Alright, I don’t get it…” said Seto. He even allowed himself a sad pout.
                “Dominic,” Lynn chuckled.
                “Yeah, he’s great. You’ll hate him. We went down together to take him out after he had some issues with a poodle. He was supposed to be taking out this drug lord, and the guy had black curly hair and it was kind of long. And Dom was new at this and nervous, so he was looking through a rifle scope, and he saw the black curly hair and he fired. Well, it turned out he shot the guy’s French poodle, not the guy. The guy was pissed and paid us to take out whoever killed his dog. Dom still had the contract for the guy, and he offered us fifty percent to lay off the dog thing. Well, by then we were all… well, we were a bit worn out…”
                That made Lynn snort as he tried not to laugh.
                “And Dom, when he wasn’t otherwise occupied, would just lie in bed and rant about how that stupid hair had distracted him. How he was sure that it was the same, and he thought he could just pull off the shot and get the hell out of here. So, Lynn mentioned using doodles to keep himself focused and force himself to slow down and keep his head. Well, Dominic thought about it and he went to finish the job. He didn’t come back. A few hours later we went to look for him, and in the guy’s garage we—“ Lynn clapped a gloved hand over Jou’s mouth.
                “Mixed company, Joey. You’re going to scare the straight kid’s girlfriend.”
                Beneath his hand, Jou mumbled something.
                “No, apparently he’s totally straight. He said vanilla straight.”
                Jou mumbled something that sounded dismissive.
                “Don’t give me that. No bi man would stay bi if they had such a beautiful woman to keep them company. You’re totally gay and she’d make you—“ Lynn stopped and glared at Jou as Jou smothered his mouth, too. Lynn released Jou and pulled Jou’s hand away from his mouth. “I was going to be tactful. But yes, he’s straight. And already thoroughly in shock. The kid’s sensitive, in case you hadn’t noticed. If Dominic shows up and we all survive, we’ll have to him on a short leash.”
                Jou huffed. “Just keep his ass in bed. He’ll stay calm and you won’t end up bouncing off the walls. It’s a win win.”
                Lynn’s eyes and smile sparkled. “On a short leash in bed… The idea has some merit. He might just head back to South America. We’ll see. So, Mr. Roland, please lead the way.”
                Roland shut his eyes and nodded slowly. “This way. We have an incinerator in the boiler room.”
                “Ah, Mr. I-Really-Am-Kaiba does this kind of thing a lot, then?”
                Roland said nothing as Lynn followed him out of the room, toting the body as easily as a regular bag of trash.
                “Kaiba,” Jou regarded him seriously. He pulled a small black canvas roll out of his jacket pocket and unrolled it, pulling at a bit of Velcro to reveal what looked like syringes. At the end was a small, dark colored bottle shoved neatly into a pocket. He pulled out a small handkerchief and unscrewed the bottle top. “I need to ask, is Mokuba going to be okay with this?”
                “With the assassin? I think so, yeah. He’s a Kaiba, after all.”
                “Alright then,” said Jou without any sign of emotion. He stepped behind the chaise lounge and patted Mokuba on the shoulder. “Are you alright, Mokuba?”
                “Do you think I’m fucking alright?!” Mokuba shouted, leaping to his feet. Jou shoved his hand into Mokuba’s chest, pressing deep into his neck just above his windpipe, and shoved the smaller man backwards. When Mokuba opened his mouth to shout, Jou covered his mouth and nose with the white cloth. Jou kept pushing Mokuba backwards as his eyes dilated and then began to close. He was unconscious before his knees gave way and he dropped into a chair that Jou had been pushing him towards.
                “Chloroform?” Seto asked, forcing himself not to panic. Jou wouldn’t hurt Mokuba. Jou couldn’t hurt Mokuba. It just wasn’t possible.
                Jou smirked and winked at Seto.
                “Mokuba?” Temari gasped, climbing to her feet. “What did you do to him? What have you done!”
                Lynn and Roland reappeared in the doorway and Lynn quickly approached Temari from behind. He grabbed both of her arms and held her steady while Jou covered her face with the cloth for a few seconds.
                Lynn sighed and carefully laid her down on the floor. “Well, crap. If it’s not one thing it’s another.   Rohypnol?”
            Jou shook his head and returned to the small black canvas bag. He began to fill a small syringe from a vial. “Ketamine. Got it at the veterinarian’s.”
            “Isn’t Rohypnol a date rape drug? Jou, I’m not going to let you—“
            “Relax, Kaiba. It’s just to make them forget this evening. They’ll wake up feeling hung over, and they won’t remember the last twelve hours. It’s sometimes used in Europe for human anesthetic. I’m estimating their weight for the dose, but I doubt I’m off by much. We’ll have to invent something to explain the hangover, but they won’t be so in shock they’re catatonic.”
            “It’s safe?”
            “Yes.”
            “Oh! Oh! Oh! Can I make a suggestion?” Lynn was practically jumping up and down.
            “Yes?” Jou asked as he rolled up Mokuba’s sleeve.
            “We should strip them and put them in bed together!”
            Seto moved closer to Mokuba’s chair, watching the amber colored liquid disappear into his brother’s arm. “What? Why?”
            Jou and Lynn both stared at Seto. Jou cleaned the needle, refilled it, and moved to Temari.
            “When it comes to his brother, Kaiba-sama is rather oblivious about anything that suggests Master Kaiba is no longer twelve,” Roland said seriously.
            “No,” Kaiba shook his head. “No way. He would have said something!”
            But, he had said something, Kaiba knew. And he had huffed and signed and left the country a lot while he and Temari had been together. Even back then, when she was still finishing school and Mokuba was still underage, he had gotten upset every time Seto belittled her or argued with her.
            “She’s older than him. It’d never work. And she’s way too coarse and nasty for him. He needs somebody decent, somebody pure and innocent, and somebody who’ll devote herself to him. Temari is just…” Seto stopped when he saw the look in Jounouchi’s eyes.
            “I’ll take Master Mokuba up to his room,” said Roland. Roland hoisted Mokuba with gentle hands.
            “I’ll bring her up in a minute.” Jou looked up from Temari’s arm. He pulled out the needle and rubbed the small spot on her arm. “Seto, she’s sweet. If she can keep up with Lynn, she’s smart enough to talk to him like a peer. She’s not intimidated by his last name or his brother. She’s gorgeous. And he’s crazy about her. But none of that matters, because you’re a territorial asshole.”
            “She’s my therapist,” Seto insisted. “It would hurt his chances more than it would help, because she would consider it some kind of ethical breach. At least, that’s why she said she wouldn’t sleep with me anymore.”
            “Yeah,” Lynn said slowly. “I’m not claiming any expertise or anything, but in the states, every licensing body for psychiatrists and psychologists has pretty clear cut guidelines for that kind of thing. If she can continue to do her job without compromising your privacy, it’s all good. Sleeping with you as your therapist would be totally unethical. There’s always a power imbalance that leaves too many questions about informed consent.”
            “Read a lot of psychiatric licensing board regulations on the beach?” Seto snapped.
            “Oh, he is territorial. Think he’ll get mad if I molest you tonight?” Lynn strolled over towards Jou and slid his hand up the inside of Jou’s thigh.
            Seto had no idea what possessed him to move.   He had no idea when he had developed suicidal tendencies, or whatever other madness possessed him, but he found himself surging forward, holding the unusually heavy tweed suit jacket of the American assassin and hoisting the man off the ground. Lynn laughed gleefully as Seto slammed him into the wall. “You bet your ass I am territorial. You will not touch him. I can put up with the jokes, the dead bodies, the art, and I can even put up with you groping my brother, but while you are a guest in my home, you will not touch Jou.”
            Directly behind him, Jou laughed. “Might want to watch your ass, Kaiba. He’s likely to molest you, if you can’t keep your hands to yourself. He likes that kind of thing.”
            Seto’s rage subsided quickly as he realized that, while he had a hold of Lynn’s jacket, Lynn had a hold of him. He had one hand on Seto’s hip, and his opposite foot was raised and scraping against Seto’s kneecap. All Lynn had to do in order to shatter Seto’s knee was to hold on to him and push out with his foot. His other hand, however, was otherwise occupied.
            “Or me,” Seto said slowly. He shut his eyes and forced his body to stop reacting to the other man’s touch. “Get your hand off of my dick. And please don’t break my knee,” added Seto. He set Lynn down and nearly snagged his fingers on something sharp in Lynn’s jacket. “You’re still wearing a bullet proof vest?” Seto asked.
            Lynn lowered his foot as Seto stepped away, then patted him on the shoulder as he walked towards Jou. “If you’re trying to sort out the logistics of getting everyone here naked, they’ve got quick release straps.” As he walked past Jou, he ran his fingers over Jou’s ass and slowly up his back to his neck. “Have you stopped to consider that Joey might have his own ideas about how he wants to spend his evening?”
            Seto’s breath caught. Jou tilted his head and moaned as the older man touched him.
            “I said do not touch him.”
            “If you’re volunteering to take his place,” said Lynn thoughtfully. “Well, you’re a bit tall for my taste. I think I’ll stick with him.”
            “Kaiba,” Jou laughed even as he leaned into Lynn’s touch. “You don’t have any right to tell me who I can and cannot fuck around with. Sex is just sex, it feels good, and that’s all. Oh fuck, that feels good,” Jou whispered. Whatever Lynn was doing to Jou’s neck had Seto’s blonde fidgeting with the effort of standing still.
            “I don’t like to repeat myself,” Seto hissed. He stalked around the chair Mokuba was in, rushed to Jou’s side and aimed one of his better side kicks at Lynn. Lynn and Jou both danced away, both laughing. Seto had earned two black belts and he liked to think that he knew how to handle himself, but none of the kicks or punches he threw at Lynn came anywhere near touching him. The man moved so fast that Seto found himself spinning just trying to track him through the sitting room. Spinning and falling on his face.
            Lynn’s weight settled on top of him, lighter than Seto expected, but balanced to put enough pressure on his hips and shoulders to keep him from throwing Lynn off. “You are funny,” Lynn whispered in his ear. “But you’re going about this the wrong way…”
            Seto tried to twist his arms far enough back to get a grip on Lynn, but everywhere he reached, all he found was air. The man’s weight stayed centered on him, but Seto couldn’t move. “Get off me!” Seto growled.
            “Sure,” Lynn leapt off of Seto’s back and took up a casually defensive stance several feet away before Seto even managed to raise himself up onto his hands and knees.
            Seto glared at Lynn, who was bouncing and giggling madly. Lynn shook his head and then very pointedly motioned around the room. The room was empty. Jou was gone. Temari was also gone, so Seto assumed that Jou had decided to carry her to a guest room. Seto briefly wondered if Jou might try to take advantage of her, but Seto knew he wouldn’t. He would probably just go back to his room and pick up a book.
            Seto thought about trying to attack Lynn again, and then slumped down into the wingback chair next to him. “What the hell?” he whispered.
            Lynn bent down beside him, keeping both hands on the chair, and leaned over towards his ear. “Let me spell this out for you, Mr. I-Really-Am-Kaiba, and I’ll try to spare you some of the psychology behind it. Joey likes to play rough. He assumes that other people like to play rough too. All of the scars he and I have given each other ended, or started in one case, with sex. His last relationship included more violence than sex. But Joey is not my lover. He’s my friend. I have a nice, warm, fussy relationship to go home to.”
            “But you still sleep with Joey?”
            Lynn smirked. “I know-I’m a lucky guy.”
            “But you cheat on your partner with Joey.”
            “Cheat? If it was a secret, or she cared, maybe. My wife thinks he’s hot, too—and she’s adventurous enough to admit it. Plus, she cooks, cleans, looks hot in a bikini after having kids, and doesn’t care that I’m a workaholic. I know that I’m a lucky guy, believe me, I know. But what I was trying to get at is that, as his friend, I’d like him to have a warm fuzzy relationship of his own. Obviously, he doesn’t tell me about everyone, but I’m pretty sure that he’s never been with someone where he felt safe enough to let himself feel anything beyond physical sensations. The only two relationships, friendship or otherwise, that I know of him having with someone other than me didn’t end well. One was a fourteen year old girl who was obsessed with the idea of being his lover and couldn’t accept that he was gay even after walking in on him during sex, and the other was such a jealous little tit that he nearly killed Joey when Joey got tired of the sex and told him that he’d rather read.”
            “Would you please break that damn habit and call him Jou! His name is Jou, not Joey! And you made it sound like even you would have a hard time killing Jou.”
            “The last pass port I saw said Joseph,” Lynn argued. “But it doesn’t matter. He is better than me. He doesn’t think so, because I’ve beaten him, but… Well, the few times push has come to shove, I won because he was drugged to the fucking gills on Vicodin and liquor, or because he was in the early stages of hepatic failure.”
            “His liver really failed?” Seto’s eyes narrowed.
            “Not the point! I won because he couldn’t stop stand up straight. His last lover was good enough that I don’t know which of them would come out on top if they were both determined to kill each other, but I do know that they never made it into bed without a fairly rough sparring match first. So, are we clear now? You could just say he’s big on alliteration… Fighting. Flirting. Foreplay. Fucking. I honestly don’t think he bothers to listen beyond the first sound of the word, and it wouldn’t matter if he did, because it’s all one and the same to him. He walked away because, as far as he is concerned, you’re having more fun with me. The jealous lover thing isn’t going to go over well. He’s probably already analyzed your words and behavior and decided that you were verbally rationalizing putting yourself in a position that would lead to me fucking you without compromising what you’re trying to build with him.”
            “But I…”
            “Yelled some stupid possessive crap to try and convince either him or yourself that you were still committed to the idea of warm and fuzzy, and then you focused on me. But that is just what he’s probably thinking. It’s not what I’m thinking. The option that I think is unfortunately true is that you’re so used to thinking of people around you as your property that you already have Jou objectified and stamped as yours inside your own head—just like the therapist your brother seems to talk to more than you do. In that alternative, Mr. Kaiba, you turned your attention on me because you thought I was trying to touch your property, and when you subconsciously decided that Jou is property and not a person, you disregarded the fact that he could have thoughts and feelings on the matter. The idea of confronting him never occurred to you, because since he’s not a person in your head, he’s absolved of responsibility—like a kid whose parent fails to stop them from stealing a candy bar from a grocery store. If you want his attention, you’ve got to give him your attention. Talk to him, read with him, fight with him… And don’t make stupid assumptions of ownership. For someone who sounds so smart occasionally, you’re not that bright.”
            Seto was tired of hearing that phrase. Even if he didn’t know how to use every weapon in the world, he was still a Kaiba. He could jump into multi-national negotiations half-way through, he could pick up international politics during a cocktail party, and he finished his first graduate degree at nineteen. “Why the hell do all of your people sound the same?!” Seto snapped.
            Lynn shrugged. “Joey… I’m sorry, Jou and I have been friends for a long time. Since he started in this gig. We have a lot of the same mannerisms, same jokes…”
            “I mean, why do all of you psychiatrists always sound the same? I swear I had this same lecture from Temari a week ago.”
            Lynn shrugged again and walked away from the chair, towards the vacant chaise longue. He laid back and regarded Seto with the first serious expression Seto had ever seen on the man’s face. “She must be a good therapist, if she’s willing to tell you what you actually need to hear.”
            “Are you a good therapist, Lynn?”
            “I don’t work with patients,” the American said quickly and without even a flash of surprise.
            “No,” Seto agreed. “I suppose not. Primate research almost always happens in big corporations or in academia. Since there are ethics committees involved, and since you said your world ends when most schools are beginning their September terms, I’d guess academia. Did you just take it upon yourself to help Jou, or is he a research project?”
            Lynn chuckled and his smile returned. “He’s a friend. One of my best friends. And he’s sane. Do you have any idea how fucking rare that is? For someone to be truly sane? Not to live their lives happily deluded by magical thinking? Especially with our job. Most people who try to do our jobs end up as complete psychopaths. We get megalomaniacs who think they’re gods, anti-social little twits who feel they’re entitled to something the world has never delivered and who’re out for revenge, ex-military badass Marines who can’t get past the guilt and end up dropping into their local drug trafficking scene instead…”
            “People who cover the walls in bloody flowers and happy kitties…”
            “Exactly,” Lynn agreed. He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “I’ve got to get some sleep. I keep letting things slip and I’m a dead man. Do you have a spare room I could sneak into, or can I crash on the couch?”
            “Come on,” Seto motioned for Lynn to follow.   “You can take Jou’s room. He can sleep with me.”
            “Yeah,” Lynn snorted behind him. “Because the assumptions necessary for that to work out are going to go over real well…”
            Seto sighed and headed up the stairs. “Sorry,” he muttered.
            “Save it for Joey.”
            “Yeah. Right.” Seto knocked on the door to Jou’s guest room. When no one answered, he tried to handle. The door swung open to reveal and empty guest room. The bed had been made, the sandwich plate from the day before taken, and the books all stacked neatly on the night stand. “Hu.”
            A few doors down, Jou and Roland quietly slipped out of Mokuba’s bedroom. Jou was carrying two small paperbacks.
            “Did you put Temari in there?” Seto asked.
            “Yeah,” Jou smiled. “Don’t worry, they both have clothes on. We just set them close enough so they can snuggle in the morning.”
            “I can’t believe you agreed to this,” Seto said to Roland.
            The old man patted him on the shoulder and walked past him to the stairs.
            “Fine. What are those two?” Seto nodded towards the books in Jou’s hands.
            “Another Terry Pratchett novel, and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I figured Mokuba wouldn’t mind.”
            “Of course he won’t,” Seto agreed. “American Gods I’ve read, that was good. Mind if I give this other guy you’re reading a shot?”
            Jou shrugged and handed him one of the paperbacks.
            “Thanks,” Seto said, glancing over the back cover. “I told Lynn he could crash in the guestroom you were in, since it’s the only one that’s actually got sheets on the bed. I know you just want to read until you fall asleep, but I was hoping we could do that together tonight?”
            Jou looked at Lynn and then back at Seto. Lynn reached around his back and pulled something out of his waistband. Seto recognized the opened box of oil pastels from the library. He fidgeted a bit more with his pants and then produced the small packet of paper. “Thanks again for these, Joey. Get some rest, you need it.”
            “And you don’t? Or are you’re getting slow in your old age? Because I had that dipshit down before you even managed to fire.”
            “I am aware of that,” said Lynn, distracted by the pastels and paper. “And I do need sleep. But first, if I can’t arrange those two in some kind of gorgeous erotic scene in real life…” He held up the paper with a smile. “At least I can let my imagination run wild. Good night,” he said, quickly disappearing into the guest room and effectively making the decision for Jou.
            Jou looked at Seto, his stone mask firmly in place. “Lead the way.”
            Seto set his hand on Jou’s hip and steered him towards his own bedroom. Inside, Jou settled on the bed, still fully dressed, adjusted the lamp on the nightstand, and opened his book. Seto tossed the novel Jou handed to him on to the bed and took off his suit. He didn’t bother shying away of hiding as he slipped his slacks and briefs down over his knees. He pulled on a clean pair of black sweats then rummaged in his drawer for another pair. He tossed it into Jou’s lap. “You want a t-shirt?”
            “Hu?” Jou looked up at the sweats, then at Seto. Seto was surprised at just how quickly the fire returned to Jou’s eyes when Jou’s eyes were focused on him. The dead look was almost instantly replaced by a glimmering appreciation as Jou’s eyes lingered on Seto’s chest. Seto couldn’t help the way his lips curled up. He didn’t have quite the same chiseled body that Jou did, but he worked hard to make sure that he was in good shape.
            “A t-shirt?” Seto said again. “I figured my sweats would fit, since they’re elastic. Do you want a t-shirt, too, or are you good with those?”
            “I’d like a t-shirt,” said Jou, surprising him.
            Seto turned back to his dresser and pulled out an old Red-Eyes t-shirt. It hadn’t fit him since he was a teenager, but Jou was a few inches shorter than him. He turned to toss the t-shirt to Jou and paused when he saw the other man was half-undressed. He had taken off his jacket and shirt, and was carefully unstrapped a form-fitting bullet proof vest. As he took that off, and then the undershirt beneath it, Seto’s eyes were drawn to the scars on Jou’s chest again. The smiley face was the most prominent, but there were several others, that stood out as lines of white skin in the darkness. The sight of those scars made Seto want to tackle Jou, to hold him down and kiss and lick him until he realized that foreplay didn’t have to result in stitches. Instead, Seto brought him the t-shirt and ran his fingers over some of the scars that he hadn’t noticed before.
            “Thanks,” said Jou, stepped back so he had room to pull the t-shirt over his head.
            The small Red-Eyes Black Dragon shirt clung to Jou’s slender frame just like his undershirt had. “Sorry for drooling,” Seto said frankly. “You look good in black.”
            Jou gave him a half-smile and dropped his pants. He pulled the sweat pants on quickly, and then returned to the bed, and to his book.
            Seto tried not to sigh, but failed. He walked around to the other side of his own bed, sat down, and picked up the book Jou. He adjusted the pillows and sat back against the headboard, close enough to Jou that he could feel Jou’s shoulder on his own, Jou’s thigh against his. If Jou noticed, he didn’t give any indication. But, he also didn’t tell Seto to leave him alone or to give him space, so Seto decided it could have been worse.
            He read a few pages and found himself laughing, despite the disappointment and uncertainty battling for attention inside of him.
            “Told ya,” Jou whispered, turning a page in his own book.
            Another couple of pages and he found himself laughing at a joke hidden in a footnote.
            Twenty pages later, Seto stopped reading when he felt Jou shift. Jou yawned and stretched beside him. Seto leaned over, trying to hint that if Jou were to accidentally set his arm down around Seto, Seto wouldn’t mind. Jou folded his arms behind his head instead.
            “So tomorrow we’re going to get Buddha and Pest back,” Seto said quietly.
            “Yeah. I’m going to need you to hang back for that. I can’t seem to focus on anything else when I’m worried about you. And I can’t seem to not worry about you.”
            “I’m glad you worry about me. I know it makes things dangerous for you, but I’m still glad you do it. Any idea where they might be?”
            “Nope. Thought I’d call Dominic and ask where he has them.”
            “Dominic. You know him pretty well?”
            Jou paused and glanced over at Seto, appraising something that Seto himself couldn’t guess at. “If I tell you that he and I were together for a while, are you going to start acting like a moron again?”
            “I already figured that much out. By together, do you mean you were in a relationship together, or just fucking each other?”
            “Together. Until about six months ago, anyway. That’s why I came back to Japan when ‘Tani called me. I figured we could both use some space.”
            “He came all this way to kill you,” said Seto.
            “Ten million is a lot of money,” Jou said softly. “I’m sure it’s personal, but I’m also sure he wouldn’t have bothered without the money. He’s nuts, but not vindictive.”
            “I guess,” whispered Seto. Jou’s last lover was willing to kill him for ten million dollars. And willing to take his cats to get to him. The blank, dead look in Jou’s eyes suddenly left Seto in awe. Seto couldn’t imagine how much strength it must take Jou to temper his reaction to such a betrayal, to control all of the pain and anger he must have been feeling.
            Seto snuggled down into the bed, closer to Jou. He wasn’t going to let the other man go now, not for anything. Whatever course Jou’s life had taken, no one deserved to have such a callous lover, and no one deserved to be in a position where they had to accept a travesty of sex and violence like that as a relationship. Seto would show Jou what a healthy relationship could be like. He would have to figure out what the hell a healthy relationship was supposed to be like in order to do so, but he would do it.
            “Can I just say one thing before you go back into your book?” Seto pulled Jou’s chin towards him. “This is all really, really fucked up. I am sorry for acting like a bit of a caveman myself down stairs. Your friend is… Well, honestly, he’s hard to ignore, and I was acting stupid. But this, right here,” he gestured between them, “this is where I want to be. I know from the look in your eyes that I’m not getting laid tonight, but even knowing that, I still want to be here. I still want to be with you.” Seto pushed himself up a few inches and kissed Jou. He didn’t force the kiss on him, didn’t attack his tongue or try to get him worked up, he just touched his lips to Jou’s.
            Jou’s expression was still blank as Seto pulled away, but there was a hint of a smile in his eyes again. “You know I’m not very good at this kind of thing, right?”
            “You mean normal foreplay?”
            Jou squeezed his eyes shut. “That too…”
            “Well, we’ll just have to practice.” Seto ran his hand from Jou’s chin, over his cheek and down his neck. He was thrilled when Jou leaned into his touch.
            “Practice? Sure, but…” Jou whimpered and held up his book.
            “Yeah, I know. Go on.” Seto snuggled deeper and propped his own book open again. After a few moments, he smiled as Jou’s arm slipped around him.
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Deliverance