Here it be, the last chapter. Hope you folks enjoyed it while it lasted!

7:20pm

"Fuck!" Jou exclaimed. He ran his hands through his hair. "Who knew Niwatori could be such a fucking wild card?"

"Expect the unexpected," Seto quipped.

"Yeah, like you did two games ago? I beat you so bad!" Jou looked smug.

"That was just a fluke," Seto said tersely.

"But it was a brilliant fluke, wasn't it? You never saw it coming!" He really hadn't, not until it was too late anyway. Seto could tell Jou would be gloating about it for days to come.

"That was just luck, Jou." The blond grinned enthusiastically in response.

"You know, if it came down to it, I think I'd rather be lucky than good," Jou said, reshuffling his makeshift deck.

"Luck. Hah." Seto scoffed. "I'd take skill over luck any day."

"That's because you have no faith," Jou replied.

"Of course I have faith. I have faith in myself, and in my skills as a duellist."

Jou rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. It's all skill."

"What does that mean?" Seto asked in irritation.

"For a guy who doesn't believe in luck, you're pretty damned lucky."

And try as he might, Seto couldn't prove him wrong.

"Let's duel," he said in annoyance. He hated when Jou was right.

10:20pm

"How much time we got left?" Jou asked groggily.

Seto checked his watch for the thirty-seventh time that hour. "We're almost there. Two and a half more hours."

"I'm so excited, I don't even care anymore." Jou yawned. "I've never been so tired from doing nothing. Even Duel Monsters wasn't enough to keep me up." He yawned again, as if to prove his point.

They sat cross-legged, facing each other, and had stopped playing Duel Monsters half an hour ago. Jou had ceased complaining of the cold, preferring to suffer in silence; had eaten his candy bar, was still starving; had gotten crushed in Duel Monsters; and was now falling asleep on himself.

Seto, on the other hand, was far from sleepy. They had exhausted all their options, and now there was just pure, unadulterated nothingness surrounding them. Seto's agile mind was not accustomed to complete nothingness, and he was sure that this was what insanity felt like. What had been a moderate but aggressive buzzing in the back of his mind while he was otherwise occupied had now rushed unabated with a deafening roar to the foreground, and he was going crazy with knowing he had so much to do and couldn't do any of it. He had files to read, proposals to reject and egos to invalidate, goddamnit. And all he had been doing for a good chunk of the past ten hours was staring at the walls.

He said as much to Jou, more to keep him awake than anything else, and raised an eyebrow when, after a few moments thoughtful contemplation, Jou said he had something that could keep them occupied for a long time.

"No, no, it's not what you think," he said hastily as Seto began to remind him about the cameras. "It's a game," he said in a tone that implied that they were going to be having fun very soon.

Seto, however, had had enough of Jou's games. "I am not playing the Vault Game again, do you hear me?"

"Great, 'cuz I wasn't talking about the Vault Game," Jou shot back. "Let's play truth or dare."

Seto snickered. "I'm not ten years old, Jou. I am not playing truth or dare."

"I bet you never played truth or dare when you were ten anyways." Seto didn't answer. "Come on, what're you scared of?" There was a glint of challenge in Jou's eyes. Seto wished he could be sensible when Jou got that look in his eye, but he found that he rarely could, and was always tricked into another one of Jou's schemes. This time was no different, and Jou was already asking him "Truth or dare!" before he could re-evaluate the situation. He had the feeling that this could get dangerous.

"Truth," he said, in the surliest voice he could muster. How did Jou always manage to trap him into these things?

"Tell me the truth, now, you really are cold, aren't you?"

Seto couldn't bring himself to be irritated by the millionth iteration of that question. "A bit," he confessed reluctantly.

"There now! That wasn't so hard, was it?" Jou asked good-naturedly. "Alright, now, my turn!"

"Truth or dare?" Seto asked with maximum indifference. This was without a doubt the most childish thing he'd ever done, and given that he had been a child once, he was unsure of whether that fact was testament to how sad his childhood was, or how ridiculous they were being. Either way, he would do his best to make the game tolerable.

"Dare!" was Jou's immediate response. He regretted it when he saw the satisfied look on Seto's face.

"Good. I dare you to stay quiet for fifteen minutes," he said with an evil smirk.

"Oh, that was low," Jou said in disgust. Seto tapped his finger to his lips, and Jou crossed his arms and glared. He didn't spend all his time fuming, however. Jou took the opportunity to plan his revenge. He would make the most of this situation, even if it killed him. Which Seto might, when all was said and done, given the direction in which he was about to take their little game. He was ready when his time was finally up. He suspected Seto had sneaked in a couple more minutes, but he didn't say anything about it. He instead got straight to the point.

"Alright, Moneybags. You wanna play hardball? I can do that. Truth or dare?"

Seto looked at Jou for a while, no doubt trying to gauge what he had planned, because it was obvious from the no-nonsense tone of Jou's voice he was up to something. "Dare," he eventually settled on, hoping against hope to be dared into silence like Jou was. Or at least dared to do something relatively un-embarrassing.

"I dare you to answer my question," Jou said without skipping a beat. "Truthfully," he added.

"I don't think that's the way it works -" Seto started, but Jou interrupted him.

"How would you know? You've never played."

"So? I still know how it works."

"Forget how it works. Just answer me."

Seto didn't say anything, and Jou took his carefully blank expression as permission to ask his question.

"Why won't you tell me about your past?" he asked seriously. He tried to guess what Seto was thinking, but his typically impassive face was particularly unreadable. "Look, Seto," he said gently, "everyone's got a dirty little secret or two. You – you've got dozens. And I don't think they're so little, either. You can't run anywhere this time - I know it's hard for you, but can't you just…just let me in? Just a little?"

Jou and Seto locked eyes for a long time; and maybe it was Jou's general air of earnest pleading that did it, or maybe the cold was finally getting to Seto, or maybe it was indigestion from the bad pork they'd had yesterday - but Jou thanked whatever it was profusely when Seto gave the tiniest nod. He had never felt so elated. 'Who knew all it took was a natural disaster to crack him?' Jou thought incredulously. 'It must have knocked something loose…'

Seto had known this would get dangerous. He would need a generous amount of time admit it, but Jou was right. Again. They had been together for a while now, and maybe it was time that he told Jou things he should have known from the beginning. Things he wanted Jou to know. About his parents and the orphanage. About Gozaburo's torture. About how far he was willing to go to keep what was his and to protect those he loved, and why. Dark things, he supposed, but it wasn't that Jou didn't deserve to hear them, or wasn't ready to hear them. Seto knew Jou could take whatever he could throw at him.

It was that he hadn't been ready to tell them. It had always been that he wasn't ready. But it was time he took a chance on Jou, who had at least been brave enough to ask. He had to be brave enough to answer, but he had always been unsure about how to go about it. As he looked at Jou's open face, he knew there was only one way. He just had to take a deep breath and plunge right in. And there was no time like the present - he really couldn't run anywhere this time. He had nodded before he could stop himself - it was time he trusted Jou with his deepest of secrets, his most intimate of intimates. He'd see what Jou would do with them afterwards.

As he steeled himself for the undiluted truth, he couldn't help thinking that Mokuba would be proud.

"Alright," he said, rather confidently he thought, considering how he was really feeling. He looked unflinchingly at Jou. "What do you want to know?"

12:25pm

"-and that's why I'm not allowed in the Burger Shack on Tasty Tuesdays…or Fabulous Fridays anymore," Jou finished sullenly. "Happy?"

"Quite," Seto replied lightly. It was really taking a tremendous effort not to laugh out loud, but he controlled the urge. It was the least he could do for poor Jou. Jou had told Seto that he would do truths too, and that he could ask whatever he wanted so that it wasn't so unfair. Seto had taken full advantage of that situation, asking Jou the most embarrassing things he could think of, knowing that Jou would never not answer.

Two hours after Jou's first question, telling the truth had gotten a lot easier. Sometimes Jou asked the most difficult questions, and Seto was honestly surprised by some of the things Jou wanted to know, but he found that the more he talked, the less locked up his insides felt with every new question. It felt like confession; in the beginning each answer to each question had oozed unwillingly out of him like stubborn tar, short and unelaborated. He had been anxious about letting go, torn between what Jou was thinking and disbelief that he was telling Jou these things he'd never said aloud to anyone.

But now, he just wasn't holding onto anything anymore, and he was actually feeling pretty good about it. Well, almost 'pretty good'. He was sure that the acute awkwardness he'd been feeling was just temporary. At least, he hoped it was. He could tell it would take him a while to get used to Jou knowing everything he knew, but he was strangely comfortable with it. With the idea, at least. The actuality of it, he realised, might take some practise. Which was something he resolved to work on.

"Is there anything else you want to know?" Seto wanted Jou to get everything off of his chest now; he wasn't sure when he'd be ready for another confession session like this one.

"Nope," Jou said contentedly, gazing at Seto. Jou knew it was just his mind going off on a giddy trip, but Seto actually looked different to him now. He was brighter, more fragile, more beautiful, and more unbelievably human than Jou thought possible. He really liked – no, loved this. This unabashed trust from Seto was the best birthday present ever.

He was lying of course, he was bursting with more questions, but he could wait. He considered what Seto had just done to be an incredible leap that Jou thought him incapable of taking, and Jou thought if he asked Seto another question, he just might break him. He could always take this up at a later date. A much, much later date, he knew; but he also knew that Seto had opened the door, and he had stuck his big foot in it, and they had all the time in the world.

"Okay," Seto said agreeably. He seemed glad that Jou was done, and Jou was just glad in general. He was so happy he might have done a jig if his hip weren't frozen in place. Or, if he knew what exactly a jig was.

A weird little silence stretched between them, mysteriously more comfortable than it was uncomfortable.

"Twenty more minutes," Seto said nonchalantly, glancing at his watch.

"Twenty minutes, huh?" Jou was the tiniest bit disappointed that they had such little time left. He had finally begun to enjoy their forced solitude. It had just been the two of them alone for the first time in a long time (and the people watching the cameras, of course, but Jou had blocked that thought out because it was creepy), and they had found a definite intimacy within the vault's impenetrable steel walls that Jou didn't want to give up yet.

He finally registered what he was thinking and almost smacked himself. What the hell was he talking about? Of course they needed to get out of there. He must have advanced hypothermia, or something. He wondered if there was anything Seto could do to help him out.

"Hey. Can you think of anything we can do in twenty minutes that can warm up my poor, numb body?"

Jou asked this in an entirely innocent way that implied nothing but naughtiness. Seto eyed Jou and affected a pensive look.

"You mean work the joints a little? Stretch the muscles?"

"Exactly! It's like you read my mind! You thinking about anything in particular?"

"Absolutely. Stand up."

"What?" Jou had been leaning forward on his hands, inching his face closer and closer to Seto's. What he had planned did not involve any standing at all. "What are we doing?"

"We're stretching. A little exercise is exactly what we need. We should have done this hours ago." And with that, Seto got to his feet and yanked Jou up with him. Jou heard something pop, and although he was mostly numb, he was positive he felt an ambiguous pain somewhere.

"Oh dear gods," Jou whispered, clutching his side. "I think I broke something."

"Is that the wailing of an infant I hear in the distance?" Seto asked glibly, bending to touch his toes.

"Screw you!" Jou retorted. "You're no fun at all," he muttered, and having no choice, tentatively straightened up and started stretching out his arms.

12:45am

The alarm signalling that the vault was about to open came faintly through the steel walls, and both Jou and Seto perked up. Seto had been slowly pacing, and Jou had been leaning against a wall, watching him idly. Jou immediately said a silent thank you to whoever was listening that he hadn't frozen to death, starved to death, been bored to death, and especially that he hadn't been beaten to death with his own shoe. He had never been so relieved, and he relished the thought of The Outside. He couldn't wait to go home, eat everything in his fridge, and then go curl up in his nice, warm bed and sleep off what he hoped would not be permanent trauma.

After a moment's thought, however, he also said a silent thank you for getting locked in there in the first place. Not that he wanted to make the vault his personal summer home or anything, but it definitely had its uses.

Jou took off the trench coat Seto had so graciously offered him hours before to give it back to Seto. He returned it in much the manner he had received it; that is, he flung it at Seto's head. Seto, obviously preoccupied with the story he was going to tell once they got out of there and all the work he'd have to catch up on, never saw it coming. Jou shrugged at the megawatt glare Seto gave, saying only "Expect the unexpected," to which Seto snorted mightily in reply. He went back to his brainstorming, and Jou continued observing him. Seto was absently straightening his trench coat with a meticulous care that Jou frankly found absurd. He smiled fondly. It really hadn't been such a disaster after all.

Seto, on the other hand, had business on his mind. He was sure he'd have a lot to deal with once they crossed the threshold, and he wasn't really looking forward to it. Maybe he'd lost some brain cells, but he actually appreciated the time he and Jou had just spent in the vault. He really couldn't remember the last time he got a chance to slow down and just be with Jou, and perhaps after everything that had unfolded between them, maybe the crippling embarrassment of being locked in his own vault was kind of, a little bit, sort of, possibly…worth it. Yup, that was it. He had definitely lost some brain cells, and they definitely had to get the heck out of there. He glanced at Jou, who seemed as reluctant as he was to leave. But it really couldn't be helped.

"Time for damage control," Seto said striding toward the door as the first bolt slid back with a resounding clang. Jou followed.

"Wait! Just one more thing," Jou said suddenly, pulling Seto's arm and making him turn around. It sounded vaguely urgent, and Jou definitely looked worried.

"What?" Seto asked. Jou regarded him seriously, and Seto prepared to answer what seemed to be an important question. He'd answer whatever Jou asked here, in this steel cocoon of safety where there were no boundaries between them anymore. Seto wondered what was upsetting Jou so much.

"Do you really think they ate all the cake?"

And just like that, things were back to normal.

"I hope they ate all the stupid cake," Seto said crossly. "It would serve you right for causing this mess in the first place!"

"How many times do I have to say that this isn't my fault!"

"You can't count that high. Besides, whose fault would it be, then? Surely not mine."

Their loud voices drowned out the sound of the second bolt pulling back.

"I am going to kill you! It's a miracle we made it outta here alive!"

"I agree. I'll tell you what. When we're done here, I'll take you to the Burger Shack to celebrate it. We'll call it a belated birthday feast. It's not Tuesday, is it?"

"Hey, fuck you! You are so gonna get it when we get out of here!"

"I can run faster than you."

"Hah! I'd like to see you try."

The last bolt pulled back, and the vault doors swung open a crack, letting in a light so bright they had to squint a little. They also heard the noise of those waiting for them, Seto's staff and gods knew who else all babbling excitedly. Jou realised it might take them longer than he thought to get out of there. Seto, who had known that all long, put on his game face. The prospect was exhausting, but in light of all that had just happened to them, and they knew they could endure it. It'd be a piece of cake. Birthday cake.

They both walked toward the door that opened up on the real world, bickering merrily all the way.