Author: Thirteenth Nightengale

Email: rednightengale -at- hotmail -dot- com

Title: Teasing, or, What I'd Love To Tell Him

Length: One-shot, complete as-is.

Archive: Tell me first, then, please do!

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh!, or I would be writing episodes and making money off those episodes, not writing fanfiction stories and spending money and time on those stories. The only thing I get out of this is occasional commendation for making sure Takahashi-san's characters behave the way he intended them to behave. And even to recieve that, I have to pay internet connection fees.

Pairings: Unimportant (no, really!) but if you must think of them, any you could choose is vaguely hinted at.

Rating: PG-13 for a slightly suggestive situation and overuse of the word "touch," plus some mild swearing.

Warnings: Vaugely implied shounen-ai (boylove). Kaiba-centric. Wacky second-person present-tense POV. POV switching. Other insanity, including but not limited to, stream of consciousness, solidification of air, slight time distortion to show the same moment in two different voices, and a snarky narrator who isn't afraid to say "I."

Notes: Well, grammar-wise, before taking me to task please do remember that the runons and stream-of-consciousness oddities are there on purpose. This is set late in Battle City, after the gang un-brainwashes Joey on the docks, and before Noa hijacks the blimp. Precise timing unimportant.

Length of Header: Too effing long.

Much thanks to my dear Sorcha for beta-reading this. Quilts for you!

)()()(

Teasing

[What I'd Love To Tell Him]

)()()(

You're not sure how it happened, but all of a sudden you become aware that there really isn't all that much separating you from becoming one of "them," as you prefer to think about the eight individuals you're watching at this moment. You prefer to think of them as a unit, but never end up actually doing so, and you could kick your rebellious brain, if you knew how to kick brains, for smoothly supplying their names when you wished it wouldn't. It's harder to call them names when their real names press at the back of your tongue, and some odd part of you--small, traitorous part, you remind yourself--wouldn't mind "slipping up."

But the overwhelming majority of you knows the insults must remain a solid part of your repetoire. If you start showing any tolerance of them, it'll just be the first step in a process which they will eagerly and cheerfully continue, and which will end in them tossing out the very last thing standing between you and them, the single piece of the puzzle that makes you -not- them:

Three feet of air.

Yes. Omniscient, omnipotent you, unflappable bastard that you are, cling to those three feet of personal space like a security blanket. It is the only thing you have that they do not.

Money? Devlin and Valentine represent the group admirably in that respect. Sure, the rest of them are firmly on the penniless side, but Devlin has deep enough pockets to cover for any emergencies, and if he's tapped out, they still need not fear. Mokuba loves them, and as much as you envy them--yes, envy even Tea and the rest of those pathetic optimists--for his attention, you can no more deny his wishes than deny his power over you. And god knows your little brother would hesitate not two minutes to beg your help if they needed it.

Power. In that respect, you know you're tied with them, and it doesn't hurt you to admit it. Of course not out loud. But Yuugi, and the British one--Bakura--hold Millennium Items, and you may be stubborn but you're not stupid. Fairy tales or no, those two could play--scratch that, -have- played--some serious "pranks" on you whenever they wished. Of course you have all of KaibaCorp, and all that name can buy or barter, at your disposal, and you'll gain another brand of power as soon as you win all the Egyptian God Cards in your tournament. But till then, Yuugi's got you beat in the gaming department, and presumably he always will as far as that damn pendant of his is concerned.

Possessions. Now, technically, you know you have much more -stuff- than they do, but they don't care anyways, and they have bucketloads of love, which you're dirt-poor in despite your desperate love for Mokuba, because they each love at least all seven of the others, plus Mokuba, and you love only him. And you're loved -by- only him, whereas each of them is loved by that same twelve-year-old, plus many more people. So you don't think about that too much, and just assume that the two, love and possessions, cancel each other out.

Yes, they have everything you do, and even--admit it's true--outrank you in some ways. But you have your invisible, intangible three feet of air, and so you will never be one of "them." They have no cushion of air, no personal space, and they're always touching and hugging and linking arms and sometimes, even, two of them will lean in for a kiss. Whether or not they complete the kiss is unimportant--they never do, and you tell yourself that's just as well--it's that they're capable of getting that close that matters. You can't kiss someone from three feet away, you can't pat their shoulder when they win a duel, and you can't lean on them when you need to cry. But you have no-one to kiss and you only need your own congratulations and you'd never need to cry, so a constant three feet of air between you and the closest human being doesn't bother you at all. In fact, only they ever notice its presence, because it's normal for you but they seem to think the distance hurts you. If you did draw closer, they would try to congratulate you or worse, because they're stupid and don't understand how unnesseccary all that is. Because they're Them.

So do you keep that three feet there just because they'd never remember to, Seto Kaiba, or because if you ever breached its barrier, you think you might forget why you need it? No, of couse not, how silly--you forgetting anything? You keep it because you want to, no other reason needed.

So you watch them hugging and clapping and encouraging each other and Mokuba, and you worry they'll rub off on him, literally or figuratively, and he'll start asking for hugs in public. And of course you hug him in private, and when you got a moment to yourselves after that kidnapping fiasco at the docks you wouldn't let him go for a full quarter of an hour, but that's family business and not their business. More importantly, you wonder why you keep getting urges to touch them, too. "Three feet!" you tell yourself, but every once in a while you'd like to shake Yuugi's hand--just because he's the only worthwhile opponent you've had in almost forever, and an honorable duellist at that--not because you care about him. But you can get those urges under control rather easily, the same way you can curb your impulses to open doors for the three women, or help them and their ridiculous shoes cross mudpuddles or something simple like that, even though it's their own damn fault for wearing shoes that prevent them from being able to do it on their own in the first place.

There's only one urge you can barely keep control of, and of course it's your luck that it has to do with the Mutt. Everybody in the group is very touchy-feely, you know that, but for some reason when they touch Wheeler you get tense, and you have a very hard time standing still instead of closing the three feet between you and the group and peeling them all off him, and touching him yourself. If it's only Wheeler's sister touching him, or that over-gelled sidekick Tristan, it's not so bad, but when Valentine starts hanging herself all over him is when you really start to lose it. Especially since she touches him differently, more assertively, than all the others, and you'd like to touch him that way too. And they know he'd only ever let her do it, so they don't even try, even if some of them might want to sometimes, so they just leave her to do her thing, and nobody notices you going quietly and intimidatingly green in the corner. Green, for jealousy, right? Not green as in ill. Or is it both? This -is- the Mutt we're talking about, IQ around room temperature on a cool day.

The one and only thing that ensures your distinction as -not- one of "them," the buffer that preempts any attempts at contact or comfort, and you're about to throw it out the window for the Mutt. I'd say "love conquers all," but Seto Kaiba doesn't -do- "love," do you? Affection, perhaps. Or, since we're talking about Wheeler, perhaps "bemused tolerance" is as far as you'll let me go. You're not happy, but you'll accept that description.

And now you're lifting yourself from your patented Slouch against the wall and approaching him--he's talking about something totally irrelevant, has been for about ten minutes, and this is why you just can't stand it anymore, and you are bringing Wheeler--only Wheeler--into your three feet of personal space. You've reacted to him, showed all of them what kind of influence he, and by extension they, have over you, and now you have nothing that keeps you from being one of "them," not even your bad attitude.

)()()(

"...and so the tomato EXPLODES, right? An' I'm all like, "TOMATO!!" An' then I woke up and there's no tomato, or brocc'li, fer that matter, and I go--"

Joey's monologue is interrupted by his teeth clacking together with his tongue inbetween. Eyes watering and offended, he looks at his audience, whose own eyes are all rounder and wider than an everyday earth-moving shock would justify. Joey turns around, one hand rubbing the back of his head in indignation more than pain, to see who hit him, and if possible, discover what extraordinarily freakish occurance is upsetting his friends. He blinks, relatively certain he wasn't hit hard enough to make him see things, but wanting to make sure anyways.

Seto Kaiba lowers his outstretched palm and shakes it slightly.

"Damn, Wheeler, shut UP."

)()()(

You bite your own tongue to refrain from adding a snark about his hard head to your statement, and suddenly realize you've done more damage to yourself than just breaking your three foot shield because you accidentally used his real name, so you put 'figure out how to kick my brain' on your mental list of things to do and hold his flabbergasted stare for an extra moment before walking back to resume your Slouch against the wall. You study the group, which is currently staring at you as if you must be a body-snatching pod person, or possibly under Marik's influence, and you know at least three of them--the shortest two, plus your brother--will make you regret moving in the first place, and further, simply having eardrums; but for this one moment, you can admit to yourself that sacrificing your personal space was very much worth it.

)()()(

end

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AN: Am I the only one who notices that for all of his antisocial posing, Kaiba stands three feet--but only three feet--away from the rest of the gang?

In case you didn't catch on, the title of this fic can be read in my voice or in Kaiba's, and thus the "him" in question is either Kaiba or Joey. [smirk]

I love Kaiba and Joey equally, and intend no insult to either of them, nor to Mai. In truth I love KxJ. This does not mean, however, that I lose sight of how much fun the "hate" half of their love-hate relationship can be. This plotbunny hopped into my head at one page long, and was originally slated to become a third-person drabble consisting of only the hitting bit. But, obviously, it ate well and grew up fast.

This is the first anything I've written in roughly a year, and I don't feel quite as out-of-shape as you'd think I ought to. Tell me, how much of "it" do I still have? [smile]

Thirteenth Nightengale

07-21-04