Rescuing Strays

By: Lanku Black

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

Chp 2

Jou groaned and started to shake. Why is it so cold? he wondered, trying to get his hand to go up to his face and wipe his eyes. Apparently, though, the appendages had better things to do because they refused to move. The blonde let out another weak groan- this one of annoyance.

There was shuffling and Jou was sure he would have jumped up and screamed if his body was listening to him at that moment. He managed to open his eyes and he stared straight ahead of him blurrily. He couldn't see very well and he couldn't get himself to focus on anything for too long, but he knew enough to know that he was most definitely not in his room.

His father was dead.

He closed his eyes wearily. Even with his mind's refusal to focus on anything else he could focus on that. Now that the information wasn't so new he could process it a little better. It had been the guidance councilor who'd told him his father was dead. Liver failure. He might not know much about medicine but he knew that drinking caused liver failure.

It was ironic that the only thing his father still seemed to love had killed him. But his mother had done nearly that as well, he supposed. Jou curled himself into a ball; the shaking was getting worse. He'd have to find his way out of where ever he was soon and go home. He needed to clean up the beer bottles that littered the floor and clean up his father's body. But someone would have already cleaned his body, right? They would have moved it somewhere, so Jou would only have to clean up the bottles when he got home.

Jou was startled once again when something thick and worm covered him. He turned his eyes over to see a blur of brown and feel himself being tucked in quickly. Then the blur was gone. He fell asleep again and was confronted with nightmares.

When he woke up next, Jou's head had cleared, the shaking had stopped and he realized that he might not even have an apartment anymore. He certainly didn't have enough money to be able to pay for it and he wouldn't be able to unless he quit school and worked full time.

Jounouchi Katsuya was not one known for cowardice, but when he got up out the comfort of the bed he laid in, his only thought was escape.

Kaiba's head pounded fiercely and his temples throbbed from being rubbed too much. He had not slept all night. Whenever he tried, he found a reason not to- first he had to look over some work, then he had to debug a new computer program, and even after that he had to go over and check his work before viewing faculty request forms and denying almost all of them.

He should have seriously been paying attention to the world around him, because as he rounded the corner to the hallway with occupied bedrooms he crashed into someone. The puppy again. Jou fell to the ground and blinked the tears from his eyes. Seto refused to admit it to himself, but the fact that Jou was conscious enough to be crying was a relief. How bad would it look if the press found out that some guy he publicly disliked was found dead in his house?

The blonde was gasping for breath as if he'd just run a marathon and sweat was beginning to break out on his face. And as if that was not alarming enough, he was talking to himself.

Seto bent down to help the mutt up and was surprised to hear a childish voice muttering, "…Nowhere to go, home's gone now… dad's gone now. I'm all alone… he left me all alone… I'm alone, I'm alone… I'm alone…"

By then his voice had turned into a pitiful whine and Seto found himself sighing- he grabbed up the boy and brought him back to the room he'd been sleeping in.

"Seto!" A boy's voice screamed and the aforementioned boy frowned.

"I'm in the Ivory Room. And don't scream, Mokuba."

"Sorry, but you'll never guess what! Jou's dad died and now no one can find-" A streak of black and green flew into the room shortly followed by a more sedate but equally as worried Yuugi.

They were obviously here to ask for his assistance in finding the mutt and Seto almost felt bad for not thinking to call the Geek Patrol to return their lost pet- almost.

"Jou!" Yuugi's happy voice rang out as he ran up to his friend's side.

"Hmph. I'm going back to work." Seto got out of the room as fast as he could, ignoring everyone. Why did they have to have such loud mouths?

Jou woke up again to the increasingly familiar surroundings. Kaiba's house. He was embarrassed and annoyed to have shown such weakness in front of the boy he considered a rival. Then again… the boy hadn't laughed at him, he supposed. Of course, that only meant that he was saving it as ammo for later.

"Jou?" Jou blinked out of his centralized thoughts to see Yuugi and Mokuba staring at him in concern.

"Hey guys," he rasped out painfully. Mokuba ran off and returned a few moments later with a glass of water for Jou. Jou immediately swallowed it down, not bothering with thanks.

There was an awkward silence. Yuugi and Mokuba didn't know what to say and Jou didn't want to say anything at all.

"Jou," Yuugi began when the silence became too much. "I heard about your father…"

He had to stop this before it began, Jou saw. "It's nothing big, Yuugi. I never really liked my dad anyway. He was a real jerk… I'm just a bit sad- nothing that we need to get into a discussion about." That much was true, but not entirely. While he never really did like his father, the man had been the only family he had that hadn't abandoned him. Serenity hadn't either, but they hadn't actually talked for quite a while.

He wondered if she knew about their dad.

"But-" that was Yug, Jou thought. Always trying to help even when there was nothing you could do.

"Please just… let me sort this out on my own, okay?"

There was a frown on Yuugi's face but he nodded. Mokuba smiled at the release of tension in the room. It hadn't dissipated, but no longer was it unbearable.

"Well now that that's settled- you guys wanna play some video games with me?" Jou grinned at the change in subject and nodded enthusiastically.

"I can't- I should get going. I need to tell the others that you're okay and I kinda ran out of the shop without telling Grandpa where I was going this morning after the police called looking for Jou."

"Oh," Mokuba sighed, looking very disappointed. "Well that's okay; me and Jou can have fun together too."

Yuugi frowned at Mokuba, but didn't comment. He said his goodbyes and left.

Mokuba turned to Jou and grinned. This would certainly be fun.

In the den, Jou was in Heaven. Or at least in something peripheral to it. He'd never played so many games or had so much junk food in one sitting- ever. Kaiba certainly had a good thing going, the blonde knew.

At the thought of Mokuba's elder brother, Jou's spitefulness at Kaiba for having once again seen him in such an embarrassing position made him blurt out, "I bet that prick Kaiba doesn't play with you that much, huh?"

He had to wince, though, when Mokuba commented, "Seto usually plays with me, but you're here, so I guess he thought it would be okay to go to get some sleep," after a thoughtless and rude comment about the elder Kaiba. Jounouchi had been surprised. The way Mokuba said it, you'd think that Kaiba trusted him with Mokuba's welfare, and the thought of the cold CEO trusting him with anything- much less something of such importance as his little brother- freaked him out. But not as much as what Mokuba said next. "Besides, Seto likes you."

Jou blushed at the implications of Mokuba's words, even though he was sure that Mokuba hadn't meant it the way he said it. The thought of anyone as admittedly sexy as the CEO of Kaiba liking him, no matter how must they actually detested each other, was very flattering. "Oh. Umm… I thought he said he was gonna work?"

"Yeah, but I know he's sleeping."

"I see… so why didn't he just say that?"

Mokuba grinned. "And show the world that he's human? Never!"

A quick peek at the clock told a rather disgruntled Kaiba that he had slept well into the night. He groaned but jumped out of bed quickly. He walked two steps and fell to the floor, nearly passing out from the wave of dizziness that struck him. He took deep breaths and reminded himself for what must have been the hundredth time not to do that.

He stared at the ceiling for exactly ten second before he stood up and went out the door. He stopped by Mokuba's and then Jou's room on his way to the kitchen to find both empty. He figured Mokuba had forced Jounouchi to play one of his games or watch a movie in the den. He wasn't too worried, so he stayed on course to the kitchen.

They had several kitchens in their house but they only ever used this one, mainly because it was where Mokuba used to eat as a child and also because Gozaburo had never went in there. For Kaiba, it was better that way.

The walls were a pale green and there were peach, wooden cabinets and in the middle was an island countertop of the same color. The fridge was black and off to the side was a dark green, metal table with a glass top and chairs. Mokuba had decorated the room.

Seto grabbed a cinnamon roll from the fridge and made some coffee while it was heating up. When he was done eating, he washed the dishes and strolled to the den.

When Seto walked in the sight before him almost made him walk straight back out. Mokuba and Jounouchi were sprawled on the daybed asleep, junk food all around them and the TV still on.

Jounouchi, he decided, is definitely a bad influence on Mokuba. He had to admit though, that Mokuba did things like that perfectly well on his own as well. Knowing that there was no help for it, he made his way over and cleaned up the mess and turned off the TV.

When he finished, he shook Mokuba awake and asked him, "You planning on sleeping here?"

"Mmrph…? Yeah." Seto shrugged to himself as the boy went straight back to sleep.

Then, that left the puppy. The brunette moved over to him and repeated the process. This time, though, the person he woke was more receptive. "Huh? Oh… I guess not."

"You know where the bedroom is?" Seto couldn't help but smirk at the rumpled mutt. He was much more genial when he was half asleep.

"…" Jounouchi glared at the taller boy. "…No."

So Seto pulled the boy up and showed him to the room he was staying in. "Breakfast is at 10- ask the maid to show you the way." He stopped talking for a moment to answer his ringing cell. "This is Kaiba."

"Mister Kaiba? Hey, I'm outside." Seto sighed when he felt the beginnings of another headache. It was his secretary.

Jou blinked. Kaiba had been rather nice to him, though that might have just been because Jou was too tired to defend himself, but he'd still seemed like himself. Then his cell phone rang.

Jou wondered who was on the other line that made the other boy look so completely unlike himself. The person standing in front of him looked almost insecure – he glanced down the hall and sighed, biting his lip.

"Okay, I'll be right there." he said into the phone and left with out even another glance at Jou.

Given the circumstances, could anyone seriously blame Jou for following after the CEO? He stayed at the top of the stairs as Kaiba answered the door.

A rather handsome man walked in. He had brown hair, blue eyes and… oh god, it was Varon!

He watched as his old rival handed something to Kaiba that he glanced at and turned away to put it on a table. Varon smiled at Kaiba in amusement. "I told them not to mess with it, but you know how those idiots get. Always trying to get your attention or a raise."

Kaiba let out a noise of frustration. "By destroying all my work?"

Varon let out a mischievous laugh. "I rather think they meant to make it better mate."

Jou heard Kaiba let out a snort. "By making it worse? Anyway, have you heard anything about the Kouryuu situation?"

"Relax Seto! I just sent them in, I doubt they can verify the pictures' authenticity in a few hours. Most likely, it'll turn out to be nothing to worry about. I mean, you got people claiming to be your biological family all the time. Why are the Kouryuus so different?"

The sound of Kaiba slamming himself into the couch covered Jounouchi's gasp. People were claiming to be Kaiba's relatives? But why? he wondered.

"They're different because they never once asked for money. They're different because their only interest seems to be Mokuba." A growl emitted from his mouth. "They're different because I think they might really be my relatives!"

Varon paled considerably. "Oh." He looked around briefly before sighing. "Look mate, calm down a bit. Mokuba's probably sleeping right? Don't want to wake him up." He sat on the couch next to Kaiba. "Well this is some fine shit, isn't it?"

"The pictures… I remember some of the places in them… and they… I've seem enough fakes to know when something isn't one."

Jounouchi slipped back up the stairs. He wasn't sure which was more disturbing, the fact that Kaiba seemed so distressed or that he was showing that side of him to Varon of all people.

Varon watched the retreating Jounouchi with a frown but didn't mention him to Kaiba. Instead he placed a quick and tiny kiss on the other boy's brow. He knew, despite the fact that Kaiba was hiding his face in his hands that he wasn't crying. He was too stubborn to ever cry in front of everyone, but Varon wondered if he ever cried when he was alone.

It must have been lonely.

"What are you looking at me like that for?" Kaiba's face had squinted suspiciously at him.

Varon grinned. "Nothing. I better get going and let you work or sleep or whatever it is you're planning on doing." At the doorway Varon turned back, winked, and then he was out the door.

A/N: I had meant to have this up a long time ago XD Oh, when plans go awry… I'm not sure I like how this turned out, but oh well. And Varon is Kaiba's secretary because for one Kaiba doesn't know 'bout him and I didn't want to add another OC.

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