Author's Notes: Part Two! Oh guilt, there you go making friends with everybody. Also, very, very AU because one, Kiryu and Carly are alive. Two, Jack and Carly are together, and three, Jack and Mikage sleep together. It's like one big soap opera! YAY!

Disclaimer: I, Nero, do not own Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds, it belongs to their respective owners. I'm just borrowing the characters.

Webs

Parings: Multiple Pairings

Rating: T-M

Summary: Everybody wants something they just don't wind up having.

Part Two: What We Want

Carly asked herself how she wound up here.

By 'here' she meant curled up next to a man that was not Jack. Jack didn't have cyan colored hair, or intense gold eyes. Kiryu did. Kiryu wasn't as built as Jack was, and his laugh was completely different. Jack's laugh was strong and proud. Kiryu's was a little carefree, insane when it wanted to be.

Sitting up in the dark room, moonlight acting as her lamp for the time being, Carly let the sheets fall to the waist-side, exposing her chest to the cool air. Her hair spilled down her back and along her shoulders, moving as she quietly got out from under the covers and padded her way around the room after finding the cold solid wall.

When her foot came into contact with a piece of cloth, she picked up and headed toward the large window to see what she was holding.

It was Kiryu's red shirt.

Carly looked over her shoulder and she heaved a sigh. Something moved about in the pit of her stomach, and it wasn't nausea. It was that feeling one got when they knew they had done something wrong. Guilt. Carly had almost wanted to cry at first, and she tried not to make any noise when the corners of her eyes had gotten blurry and those tears threatened to slip down her face.

Reaching for the large glass windows, she flipped up the mid-sized lock and let the breeze enter the room before stepping out onto the balcony. She had to remember why she was here, and how she wound up here.

~*~

"Atlas-sama…" Mikage's voice was quiet, an edge of nervousness as she held the clipboard against her chest, blushing only slightly. She couldn't help it; Jack made her feel…different when he looked at her, if only for a moment. Sometimes she found herself daydreaming (only a little, she had work to do) about how lucky she was that Godwin assigned her to look after him. Sure, Jack had his moments where he could have been nicer to her, but the night he confided in her changed everything. It enforced Mikage's belief in Jack, and not to mention she thought it was flattering that he even said anything to her.

"…What?" was the blunt reply.

Mikage's eyes went down from his own, to her shoes and in a sudden rush of boldness she tilted her head up and she pressed her lips against his.

Carly had been turning around when she heard Mikage blurt the infamous "I love you," something she herself told Jack every day only to receive a smile in return. She had left when she heard Jack say something (she couldn't catch it but it hurt all the same) followed by a muffled noise from Mikage.

~*~

Carly shut her eyes at the memory and her grip on Kiryu's shirt had tightened. She didn't want to be there that day. She remembers how she spent a good two hours crying in her car over seeing Mikage kiss Jack. She spent two hours thinking about how it all made sense. Mikage was absolutely gorgeous. Neat blue hair, pressed suit and eyes that Carly believed were prettier than her own. Mikage was so quick to be at Jack's side whereas Carly wasn't. Mikage looked out for Jack, and what did Carly do? She barely made deadlines, found little to no time to crawl into bed next to Jack, and did she mention all of her wacky disguises in attempts to get closer to a scoop?

Mikage seemed like this…pristine beauty and Carly was the girl who lived in her car at one point. Surely, she was starting to believe Jack was with her out of pity. Oh sure, she looked out for him that one time, she let him stay in her apartment (which was bad from jump street because a man and a woman who barely knew each other made for a situation where anything could happen), she made dinner for him. They were husband and wife before they were friends. Damn him for stringing her along and making her fall in love.

Well, Mikage could have him and they could be that perfect couple she saw on those TV shows.

Before Carly could think, she had been starting up her car and taking off in the opposite direction, in the direction of Kiryu's apartment. Kiryu knew what made Jack tick, he'd be able to help her by answering some questions.

Her gut instinct should have told her to wait things out, it was screaming for her to stop, leave and go find Jack instead of listen to Kiryu enforce just how obvious it was Mikage had feelings for Jack. Anybody could have told her Mikage absolutely sucked at hiding her feelings. Anybody could have told Carly that the first person Mikage though about was Jack, and not herself. Kiryu kept driving that point home: Mikage loves Jack. She loved him madly.

It set the seed of doubt in Carly's head, and she listened to her head and not her heart.

And like the fly going into the web, Carly was caught in it and unable to escape.

~*~

Jack had been going out of his mind wondering where Carly had been for the past three nights. During the day she worked and he hardly saw her, and at night she would return home late. By the third night Carly didn't come back at all, and it was unnerving.

It threw his mind for a loop because this wasn't his Carly. It was like she was purposely distancing herself from him and he didn't like it. His Carly was the one awake in the morning making breakfast while trying to edit some article she was going to turn in and freaking out when either breakfast burned (leaving them to go out and eat) or the article was so full of errors, the paper used one of Angela's stories instead. Then he'd spend half the night listening to her rant and whine, and he'd calmly push her toward the shower and go on about his business.

Every single day as they parted ways Carly would tell him "See you later, Jack. I love you!" and he'd smile. 'Way to go you fucking jerk. Say it back.' he'd tell himself when he noticed the look in his eyes before she jogged off to her car and Mikage would open the door of the limo and greet him with a happy "Good Morning, Atlas-sama!" and they'd be on their way.

When Jack had some time to himself, he'd call Kiryu and he'd tell his friend of how he fucked up and Kiryu would ask why he didn't say it back and Jack would say that he didn't know. Kiryu asked Jack if he loved Carly and his heart told him yes he did, but his head told him he didn't have time to commit to something like that. It happened every single time he never returned Carly's "I love you!".

"…I don't have time for something like that…" he'd tell Kiryu who would groan.

"Yes, that's right. The King never has time, does he?"

If Jack wasn't so distracted with his own personal feelings, he might have caught the hint of sarcasm and anger in Kiryu's voice.

If he wasn't so distracted, he might not have walked right into that very sticky trap.

~*~

"Carly…"

Jack shifted in his seat, amethyst eyes staring out the window as he sat on the couch in his office and heaved an audible sigh.

"Atlas-sama…" Mikage's voice spoke up.

"…" He didn't feel like talking to her.

"I don't mean to disturb you but…I've seen Carly."

Well, that caught his attention, he was already standing up. "Where?!"

He was also unaware of the hurt look that flashed across Mikage's face. "I've been seeing her with Kyosuke-san. They were sitting in her car on one occasion…"

Jack felt something in the pit of his stomach drop, and things had been coming together now. Carly's absence late at night, Kiryu coming around more often…yes, he should have seen it. One of his best friends was screwing around with his girlfriend, the woman he couldn't admit to loving.

"…Why are you telling me this." he said, voice unusually calm. He was however, seconds from exploding in anger and shooting first, then asking questions later.

"You deserve to know, Atlas-sama…" Mikage responded.

"…Two can play that game then." Jack muttered.

Mikage hadn't heard him, but there was a frown planted on her face. "Atlas-sama…"

"…What?"

Jack swore he heard motion outside his office door, but that was ignored when Mikage kissed him.

"I love you, Atlas-sama!"

Two could play the same game. If Carly wanted to be with Kiryu, then…

"…Good." Was what he told Mikage before he kissed her again.

He wished the pleasure overshadowed the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

~*~

"Kiryu, he said it back!" Carly cried, "He said it to her! He said it, he said it, he said it!"

That's what Carly had repeated to him when he opened his front door to find her there, a crying and angry wreck. Kiryu lead her back to his room and forced her to sit down.

"Carly, try to calm down…Are you sure he told Mikage that?"

He was banking on Carly's overdramatic nature. 'Tell me yes, Carly…' he thought as a frown was that much apparent on his face. 'Tell me Jack said it.'

"He said he loved her!" 'Bingo.'

Kiryu slipped one hand into her hair, moving the dark green strands from her face. "Carly, calm down. It's going to be okay."

He honestly felt for her when she cried in his arms, and for a moment he just sat there and listened. To think, she was crying because of something he had really done. Kiryu was the one who made it a point to be seen with Carly in front of Mikage, and Kiryu also hoped Mikage would say something to Jack. Kiryu was counting on Jack overreacting when nothing had really happened, and that in turn would make him do something stupid. Kiryu would pick up the pieces when it came to Carly, and nobody would ever find out. He told himself he was out to get everyone, they owed him for what they did to him. Systematically, he'd go through them one by one.

When Carly had managed to calm herself down, Kiryu had pressed an idle kiss against her forehead. She looked at him in surprise, and for a moment Kiryu had kicked himself. Shit. He wasn't supposed to do that. He was only supposed to tell Carly that she was better off without Jack, and she would believe him, and thus she'd be turned against him. Kiryu was not supposed to kiss Carly and have her looking at him like that.

He also wasn't supposed to kiss her on the lips completely. Doing so meant he'd be risking falling into his own carefully thought out plans. Kiryu should have been telling himself to stop when he pushed her back against the bed. He should have been pushing Carly away when her hands reached for his shirt and pulled it off and tossed it somewhere. He should not have been sharing more than one heated kiss with Carly and letting her crawl into his lap to put them closer together. Kiryu wasn't supposed to feel anything when he made her moan his name over and over again. He wasn't supposed to lie there with her in bed and fall asleep after listening to her heartbeat.

It was unfortunate that he did.

~*~

Endnotes: Really long delay, hm? I'd say so! I was trying to display that Kiryu's plan ultimately backfired in the end because boy am I fond of Kiryu/Carly (there should be more ficcage about them honestly). I hope you guys were able to catch that too, being that I wanted Kiryu to be the evil mastermind of it all this time. Trust me, the idea I had before this one set in was that Mikage AND Kiryu were working together in a sense to get the people they wanted but. I like this one better because it's a very very bitter ending. Carly and Jack never find out that Kiryu has duped them in a way, Mikage is just another unfortunate one being mislead by Jack like that, and more importantly Kiryu's gone on and fallen for Carly.

I'll stop rambling now. XD. Reviews! I loves em!