Diamond Life

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh! belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

I haven't written anything het in three years--yes, SO I AM A LITTLE RUSTY. Stop looking at me like that.
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Joey frowned and pulled his hand out of the desk drawer. "Hey Mai!" he called. "What's this?"

Mai arched an eyebrow and looked up from the crossword. Joey was standing in the living room, waving a CD case at her. "I have no idea. But I don't think it's a pen."

Joey gave her a look and stared down at the case. "It says 'Sade, Diamond Life.' Like the Marquis de Sade? I wasn't aware of this side of ya, Mai."

Mai resisted the urge to roll her eyes and left the paper on the kitchen counter. "What's this? Did you actually pay attention in history for once? And it's pronounced 'Shar-day,'" she added.

Joey shrugged. "Whatever. You had it stuffed way back in here." He handed the case to her.

"Hm." Mai flipped the CD over and glanced at the songlist. She started to smile.

Joey, who had finally fished out a pen, noticed. "What's up?"

"This has the song that was playing when we met," she answered.

Joey raised a confused eyebrow. "There was music on the boat?"

Mai gave in and rolled her eyes. "No, at the diner, dork. It was playing in the kitchen."

Joey shook his head. "I don't remember."

Mai glared.

"...I was too struck by your beauty to recall anything else," he finished.

"Nice save," Mai said as she walked over to the CD player.

Joey cracked a grin and dropped the pen back in the drawer. "Thank you!" He threw himself onto the sofa as Mai pushed play. While the sound of a trumpet began to slip out of the speakers, Mai settled herself on the couch with her head on Joey's chest.

She noticed with some surprise that Joey stiffened halfway through the first song. After a moment, he started toying with her hair, but as soon as 'Smooth Operator' changed over he began to relax again.

Mai was content to listen to the jazz, and Joey was uncharacteristically quiet, so the pair lay there as the CD slid from song to song. When 'Frankie's First Affair' began to play, however, it was M tur turn to fidget.

While she knew Joey was no innocent--she'd overheard Tea making fun of him and Yugi for watching a porn film--it didn't change the fact that this was a high schooler she was dating. An adolescent, still forgetting how to be a boy. Joey was young.

Mai remembered how, their first time together, Joey's hands had shook when he touched her. Mai was not by nature a comforting person, which didn't matter because Joey was not by nature a person who allowed himself to be comforted, but that afternoon she'd found herself murmuring encouragements and ignoring the fumbling way he'd tried to please her.

As time passed, Joey became more confi aro around her--often irritatingly so, to the point where she wanted to hit him with something--but sometimes she would catch him watching her as if to make sure that everything was real.

This was one of those times, and Mai decided to call him on it in order to drown out the chorus. "You can quit staring, Joseph. I'm still here."

She didn't look up, but she could hear the smile in his voice. "Hmph. Took ya longer ta tell this time. I'm workin' on that 'suave' thing."

Mai made a noise that was too delicate to call a snort. "Really."

"Yep." Joey reached down to pick up her hand and started kissing the knuckles. "Guess I need more practice, though. Whadda you say?"

A small smile curved Mai's lips, and the first jazzy guitar chords of 'Cherry Pie' began to play.

After a few moments, Joey pulled away from hand and and looked at the CD player. "Y'know, I think I do remember this." He started playing with her hair again.

Mai looked up, found him frowning at the speakers and gave him an expectant look, which Joey as usual ignored. As the music drifted on however, he spoke. "Y'know, this innit the best song."

Mai arched an eyebrow again. "Why not?"

Joey looked down at her. "Well, she's pissed and they've broken up, right? Don't ya think that's a bad sign?"

"Considering I've put up with you this long," Mai said with amusement, "you're going to be hard-pressed to do something to aggravate me more, Joey." She grabbed the arm of the sofa and pulled herself up to kiss him.

There was another moment of strangeness when Joey hesitated against her, but then he responded readily, sliding his arms around her waist and back.

~~~~~

That night Mai woke up when she was elbowedthe the side. She blinked several times and glared drowsily at Joey, who was twitching in his sleep. The look on his face made her assume that he was in the middle of a bad dream, so Mai slid an arm across his chest, half to calm him and half to keep him from knocking her again.

Joey flinched away and hissed, "Kaiba." He twisted out from under her arm.

Wide-eyed, Mai sat up and blinked twice at him. The third blink was slower, and her eyes narrowed as she stared at Joey, who was still moving restlessly.

Mai lay back down on the pillow and placed a hand on Joey's shoulder, rubbing a finger absently across his skin. She fell asleep later, after he stopped twitching.

~~~~~

Sometime after the sun started leaking through the blinds, Mai became aware of Joey staring at her again. Without opening her eyes, she said, "You still haven't mastered suavity yet."

"I'm plenty suave!" Joey countered. "You're just freakin' uncanny 'bout people lookin' at ya."

"Uncanny?" Mai repeated. "You stayed awake in English as well as history? You're in danger of becoming a student, Joey."

"Hmph." There was a 'whump' as he dropped his head back on the pillow. "I don't wanna get up. I'm still tired."

"I'm not surprised," Mai said. "You didn't get much sleep last night."

"Huh?" Joey turned to look at her.

"You had a nightmare," Mai answered, watching him carefully.

Joey paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Yeah, a line from one a those songs jus' brought up bad memories. The, uh...'His eyes are like angels'/ His heart is cold' bit. It's nothing."

Mai nodded, then said slowly, "Sounds like Kaiba, all right."

Joey's hands twitched as he stared up at the ceiling, the only proof Mai had that she hadn't given him a heart attack. After a moment, he reached over and started playing with a curl of her hair, but still didn't say anything.

Mai waited. She wanted an explanation, but it was obvious Joey needed time to think.

Joey started to speak carefully, picking his words, which was disturbingly out of character for him. "There was a...problem with Serenity's surgery. The doctors had to do some secondary work, but th' money went to the first operation.&qu Joe Joey wasn't looking at her, instead staring at the lock of hair he was fingering. Mai watched his face as he continued. "So I was freakin' out about how to get some cash. Then...Kaiba offered to pay for the surgery. I did some stuff for him, and Serenity's eyes got fixed, and everythin' was cool.&;
;

Mai propped herself up on one arm, taking care not to pull her hair where Joey was still holding it. "Joseph?"

Joey finally looked up from the curl. "I really don't want to talk about it, Mai. I just...didn't like owing the bastard anythin'. That's all."

Mai frowned at him, unconvinced. But after a moment of continued silence, where Joey refocused on her hair, she decided to let it go. Though almost anything to do with Seto Kaiba would get Joey riled, this seemed to be something more than usual...but if he felt that she didn't need to know, it wouldn't be something worth fighting over. She laid her head on the pillow again and drifted back into sleep, aware that when she woke Joey would have left for school. Mai would trust his judgment.

Just this once, of course....